Why do we continue to have cheerleaders at sporting events?
What are the origins of cheerleading? My WAG is that it began as a way to try to entertain and fire up spectators way back in the earliest days of organized sports, when people weren’t sure what the hell was going on and their interest in the sporting activity was more tenuous.
The majority of cheerleaders are female, especially at the high school level, where I’d guess the numbers are above 90 percent nationwide. I’m sure it initially provided a way for girls to be involved in a team activity when there were few, if no, other options available to them.
Now sports fans are knowledgeable and rabid, girls and women have all sorts of team sports opportunities available to them, and cheerleaders have to get more and more acrobatic to even get noticed at an event.
Is cheerleading an outdated concept that will be dwindling out in this century?
“Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known” - Michel Gyquem de Montaigne
Sexy women in tiny skirts are never outdated. Besides, there are instances where the cheerleaders are every bit as famous as the team (who did you hear of first, the Dallas Cowboys, or the white shorts & blue tops? for me it was the girls that sparked my interest in football).
Cheerleading has been mutating into a sport of its own, with heavy-duty gymnastic routines, some of which are quite dangerous (the pyramids and flips off the top and such). There are college and high school national competitions, and in schools with good cheerleading teams they are taken very seriously.
Yes, there are some good “teams.” But, why don’t these athletes join a gymnastics team or the like. Why be the “side show” for someone else. There are also more serious injuries in cheerleading than you would think (falling from the top of a pyramid for example). Pep squads are fine to get the fans all on the same page/cheer, there’s no need to injure yourself doing it.
As for the National Competitions, they seem as much a beauty contest as a sport.
And no offense, but while the cheerleaders they show as they return from commercial to an NFL game are attractive and a pleasure to look at, if you’re watching the whole game for that little peek you really need to get out more.
Occasionally, round holiday time, I’m in the same house with my father-in-law and brother-in-law, who are red-blooded American males and watch many, many sporting events on the television set.
While I would prefer to retire to a corner and do my needlepoint, I feel obliged to bond with them, since they paid for the beer.
I used to sit quietly, the crash of helmeted men onscreen made tolerable by frequent camera-pans to the cheerleading squads. Particularly to that chesty little brunette on the right.
In the 1980s, it seemed that the cheerleaders were onscreen almost as much as the game. But in the past ten years or so, they hardly EVER seem to be shown.
If cheerleaders became extinct, we would rapidly see a decline in Universal Studios tour guides, overly made-up discount airline stewardesses, Lancome saleswomen, aged Vegas showgirls and potential wives for Rick Rockwell.
Much like the hydrothermal vents, many scientists feel that colonies of cheerleaders are valuable since they represent the simplest form of female life on the planet.
Gypsy: Tom, I don’t get you. Tom Servo: Nobody does. I’m the wind, baby.
Just last weekend was the national cheerleading championships at Sea World, San Diego. And oh let me tell you, the art of cheerleading is certainly not dead. Still, I felt like a pedophile staring at all the young high school girls! Yes, the routines were pretty elaborate, but I think this differentiation is really a sign it is still just as popular, rather than a sign it is becoming more elaborate to try to attract more attention because it is dying.
Much like Mariah Carey starts taking off more clothes on her album covers as her music career goes down the tubes, when I start seeing cheerleaders in bikinis, I’ll know the end is near. At the moment though, it’s the same old tight fitting lycra and spandex that still makes me have to excuse myself for some…uh…mastur…uh… rather, “self-reflection”
I used to believe that cheerleading was for twits with no brain and itsy bitsy bodies. Now I don’t for 2 reasons.
1.My high school when I was in grade 11 started up a cheerleading group, which included guys, who not only did lots of yelling but helped with tumbling, and throws.
2.My university is #1 not only here in Canada, but has come first place at the Daytona championships for 3 yrs in a row. The team is equally guys and girls, with the guys doing the same tumbling that girls do.
They are the hardest working team here at Western, and it’s not as if these are small guys. These guys look like the “football” type, not too many piss them off, they’re huge 220+lbs of muscle.
The height that the pyramids get to, and the throws are spectacular.
Cheerleading here is not for T&A but a sport, that they train for 6hrs/day, 6days/week.
It won’t die here, that’s for sure.
I am a fire whose flames lick and spit at the boundless sky forever desiring wonderous consummation
-me
Cheerleaders. Damn, I never could stand cheerleaders. Sure, they’re cute, but there’s plenty of cute girls that don’t feel the need to participate in that activity. What’s more, 9 out of every 10 cheerleaders I’ve talked to were annoying as hell.
Maybe it’s just the “band geek” in me talking…
I went to high school at Greenup County High in Greenup, KY. Those who’ve watched the national championships on any kind of regular basis have probably heard of the cheerleaders from that school. They used to win the blasted thing practically every year. A group of about 20 girls overshadowed every other thing in the school system.
Don’t get me wrong. They worked for it. They worked hard. I just could never understand the point. Of everything one can do as a high school student, it has got to be the most incredibly useless activity, in terms of preparing one for adulthood.
(Now I just know that I’m gonna get flamed by all the former cheerleaders on the board.)
I was in band, and most of us thought the cheerleaders were cool. We couldn’t stand the “drill team”, however. Did any other schools have those? The cheerleaders looked natural and friendly to the crowd, but the drill team members were heavily made up with fake smiles plastered on their faces.
Cheerleaders certainly never ever did anything to help me play harder as an athlete–in fact, in wrestling, they would often cost us points because their cheers often involved slapping the mat. This annoys the ref, because he/she slaps the mat to indicate a pin. Warnings, too often unheeded, led to penalties.
If I had a daughter, I would rather that she took up stripping than cheerleading. Stripping, at least, is honest.
Political Correctness in America became an attitude in the '90s. Just because people say one thing (i.e. “Women are intelegent equals to men who can do anything they aspire to. We should not look at them as objects”), doesn’t necessarily mean that they believe it (i.e. “Woo hoo, look at the hooters on that one!”).
Now, cheerleaders only appear on TV broadcasts during half time to “entertain” the crowd. But next time you watch a pro game, be it basketball or Foot ball, notice where the cheerleaders are located - right in front of the owners and season ticket holders that paid the most money for their seats…at the 50 yard line, behind the bench, etc. I bet they’re not watching the game…they’re watching the brunette doing the splits.
