cheerleading

Cheerleading is an athletic activity that uses organized routines made up of elements from dance, gymnastics, and stunting to cheer on sports teams at games and matches, and/or as a competitive sport. A cheerleading performer is called a cheerleader. It is most common in North America but has spread worldwide.

History

Cheerleading first started at Princeton University in the 1880s with the crowd chant, "Rah rah rah, tiger tiger tiger, sis sis sis, boom boom boom ahhhhhhh, Princeton Princeton Princeton!" as a way to encourage school spirit at football games. A few years later, Princeton graduate Thomas Peebles introduced the idea of organized crowd chanting to the University of Minnesota in 1884, but it was not until 1898 that University of Minnesota student Johnny Campbell stood in front of the crowd, and directed them in a chant, making Campbell the very first (albeit male) cheerleader. Soon after that, the University of Minnesota organized a "yell leader" squad of 4 male students.

Although it is estimated that 90% of today's cheerleading participants are female (50% of collegiate level cheerleaders are male), cheerleading started out as an all-male activity. Females started to participate in cheerleading in the 1920s, due to limited availability of female collegiate sports. By the 1940s, it was a largely female activity.

Cheerleading is most closely associated with American football, and to a lesser degree basketball. Sports such as soccer, ice hockey, and wrestling rarely have cheerleaders, and some sports like baseball have none at all.

In 1948, Lawrence "Herkie" Herkimer formed the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA) as a way to hold cheerleading clinics. The National Cheerleaders Association held its first clinic in 1949 with 52 girls in attendance. The next year, the clinic had grown to 350 cheerleaders. By the 1950s, most American high schools had formed cheerleading squads. By the 1960s, cheerleading had grown to be a staple in American high school and collegiate sports. Organized cheerleading competitions began to crop up with the first ranking of the "Top Ten College Cheerleading Squads" and "Cheerleader All America" awards given out by the International Cheerleading Foundation (now the World Cheerleading Association or WCA) in 1967. In 1978, America was introduced to competitive cheerleading by the first broadcast of Collegiate Cheerleading Championships on CBS.

In the 1960s National Football League (NFL) teams began to organize professional cheerleading teams. It was the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders who gained the spotlight with their revealing outfits and sophisticated dance moves, which debuted in the 1972-1973 season, but were first seen widely in Super Bowl X (1976). This caused the image of cheerleaders to permanently change, with many other NFL teams emulating them. Most of the professional teams' "cheerleading" squads would more accurately be described as dance teams by today's standards; as they rarely, if ever, actively encourage crowd noise or perform modern cheerleading moves.

The 1980s saw the onset of modern cheerleading with more difficult stunts and gymnastics being incorporated into routines. Cheerleading organizations started applying safety guidelines and offering courses on safety training for coaches and sponsors. In 1984, Cheer Ltd Inc. established the National Cheer Conference (NCC) for cheer coaches to receive instruction and hands-on course work in cheerleading techniques. AACCA and the NCSSE are nationally recognized safety organizations. Both organizations are accepted by the NCAA to fulfill their safety certification requirement for college cheer coaches.

The spirit industry leaders were united with the unprecedented 2004 establishment of SITA, the Spirit Industry Trade Association. Founded by leaders of nine major cheerleading companies including American Championships, America's Best, AmeriCheer, Athletic Championships, Atlantic Cheer & Dance, Cheer Ltd. Inc, COA, ECA, and UPA, the industry trade association includes both cheerleading companies, affiliate companies, and safety organizations. Another trade organization, OSIP, the Organization of Spirit Industry Providers, consists of over 33 member organizations including Universal Cheerleaders Association, National Spirit Association, USASF, Fellowship of Christian Cheerleaders, Ross Athletic, CheerSPORT, and others.

Today, cheerleading has grown to an estimated 4 million participants in the United States alone.

The 2000 major motion picture Bring It On was a movie based on cheerleading. Followed by Bring It On Again and Bring It On: All or Nothing.

Jumps

• Toe Touch In this jump, the legs are straddled and straight, parellel to the ground, toes pointed, knees up or back, and the arms in a T motion. Despite its name, you do not touch your toes during a toe touch. This is the most common jump.
• Tuck A jump in which the cheerleader uses stomach muscles to pull the legs up with the thighs parallel to the ground, and the knees pointed, together, and facing forward.
• Hurdler The straight leg is either forward (a front hurdler) with arms in a touchdown, or out to the side (a side hurdler) with arms in a T. The bent knee faces the crowd in a side hurdler and the ground in a front hurdler.
• Pike This jump is among the most difficult of jumps. Both legs are straight out, knees locked. Arms are in a touchdown motion out in front to create a folded position in the air. This is often performed at a ninety-degree angle to the audience in order to show off the air position.
• The Around the World , or the pike-out, is a jump where the performer hits a pike and then whips his or her legs quickly back around into a toe touch. This jump is regarded as difficult to accomplish, because two positions must be reached in the very short time while the jumper is in the air.
• Herkie Named for Lawrence R. Herkimer, the founder of the National Cheerleader's Association, this jump is similar to a side-hurdler, except that instead of both arms being in a "T" motion, both arms are opposite of what the leg beneath them is doing. Example of this would be the straight arm would be on the side of the bent leg, and the bent arm is on the side of the straight leg. One other variation of this includes the bent leg is pointing straight down, instead of out like the side-hurdler. The jump is speculated to have been invented because Herkie wasn't able to do an actual side-hurdler.
• Double Nine A jump similar to a pike except one leg and one arm are bent in to form two "nines".
• Double Hook A jump where the legs are in the "cheer sit" position.
• Double Jump This is the name for when one performs any jump twice in a row.
• Power Jump A jump where there is no swinging of the arms in preparation for the jump. All the power for the jump comes from the legs.

Stunting

• A stunt involves one to four other bases holding or tossing a cheerleader in the air. In general, all-girl cheerleading stunts usually involve two to four other bases while co-ed ("partner") stunts are comprised of only one base (usually male) and his partner (the flyer, usually female).

• Pyramids or mounts are multiple groups of stunts connected aerially by their flyers. This connection may be made in a variety of ways, from a simple linking of hands to having a multi-level pyramid, with the flyers already in the air acting as primary bases for another flyer or flyers on top of them.

Positions in stunting

• Flyers are cheerleaders held or tossed in the air.
• Bases are the cheerleaders who hold and toss the flyers.
• Backspots are cheerleaders who stand behind the flyer and the bases that have three duties: 1. To make sure that the stunt does not fall and to help catch the flyer if it does fall. 2. To help the bases by lifting some of the flyer's weight, making the stunt more stable and less heavy for the bases (in all-girl stunting). 3. To help ensure the safe dismount of the flyer from the stunt. Typically, backspots are the in charge of calling the stunt with the beginning and ending dismount.
• Frontspots have similar duties to backspots, but are generally used by younger teams or more inexperienced squads.

Tumbling

The most basic tumbling skills are a roll, cartwheel or a round-off. Other basic, yet increasingly difficult, skills include back-handsprings and round-off back-handsprings. More advanced skills include: back tucks, layouts, arabians, whipbacks, twisting layouts (fulls), and front tumbling, such as front handsprings, and punch fronts.

Cheers, Chants and Sidelines

Every sideline cheerleading team has their "signature" cheers and chants. Most of the time the cheerleaders and coaches come up with these cheers/chants, although there are a few professional specialists, such as Krazy George Henderson.

Cheers are often longer than chants and usually incorporate jumps, tumbling, or stunting. They tend to focus on cheering for a mascot and getting the crowd to respond. Each word is usually assigned a motion.

Chants are short and repetitive. They are usually repeated three times, but can be varied. They usually have minimal motions that can be performed while standing in a line or just clapped out by a beat.

All Star Cheerleading

In the early 1990s, cheerleading teams not associated with schools or sports leagues, whose main objective is competition, began to emerge. All-star cheerleading involves a squad of anywhere between 5-35+ females and/or males. The squad prepares almost year-round for many different competition appearances, but they only actually perform for up to 2½ minutes during their routines. The numbers of competitions a team participates in varies from team to team, but generally, most teams tend to participate in six or seven competitions a year. During a competition routine, a squad covers everything from stunting to tumbling to dancing. There is custom music for the entire routine. Teams create their routines to an eight-count system and apply that to the music so the team members execute the elements being performed with precise timing and synchronization.

All-star teams are often operated out of gymnastics facilities, or cheer gyms, which are entire gyms built to facilitate the needs of competitive cheerleaders.

All-star competitive cheerleaders are placed into divisions which are grouped based upon age and ability level (non-tumble (level 1), novice (level 2), intermediate (level 3), excel (level 4), advanced (level 5)). Judges at the competition watch for illegal moves from the group or any of its members. Here, an illegal move is something that is not allowed in that division, due to difficulty and safety restrictions. More generally, judges look at the difficulty and execution of stunts and tumbling, synchronization, the sharpness of the motions in the dance, as well as the cheer (if applicable), and overall routine execution.

All-star cheerleading is a relatively young sport, but is gaining popularity at a rapid pace. The United States All Star Federation (USASF) has recently emerged as the preeminent organization for all-star competitions, gyms, and teams. Companies that run competitions include AmeriCheer, U.S. Spirit, Universal Cheerleading Association (UCA), National Cheerleading Association (NCA, the very first), Cheer Ltd. Inc, American Cheer Power, Cheerleaders of America (COA), World Spirit Federation (WSF), JAMfest Cheer and Dance, FCC (Fellowship of Christian Cheerleaders), CHEERSPORT, and many more.

USASF World Cheerleading Championships

The foremost competition for all-star cheerleading is the annual USASF World Championships held at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL. Since its inception in 2004, teams must qualify for the event by finishing at or near the top at one of several qualifying competitions. US teams have won the vast majority of the medals, but an increasing number of strong teams from around the globe have come to compete in the event in recent years. This competition has grown in popularity and prestige since its beginning as a small competition in 2004. In 2006, over 100 teams from 11 different countries competed in the event.

2004

2005

2006

Worlds Medal Count by Program

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the American style of cheerleading at sports matches is seen by many as alien to British sporting culture, and some attempts to introduce it, for example in the early days of Premiership football (soccer), have been abandoned after receiving widespread derision. There are however several sports teams that use their support: these are usually rugby league teams, and include the Leeds Rhinos, the Warrington Wolves, the Bradford Bulls, the Castleford Tigers and St Helens. The teams that play in BCAFL, the UK College American Football League also follow the American tradition of having cheerleaders support them at games, as do the GB Bulldogs, the UK national American Football team.

Recently all-star competitive cheerleading has increased in popularity in the UK and several organisations such as the British Cheerleading Association (BCA) hold national competitions every year. There is also a competing group, more recently formed than the BCA, called Future Cheer, which conforms to the relatively recent USASF coaching and safety regulations. Cheerleaders in Britain can range from the age of six or seven, up to university students, all of whom mix together and compete in competitions consisting of cheer, dance and stunt categories. Co-ed cheerleading is also a relatively popular form of cheerleading in the UK.

In the UK cheerleading is also common amongst university clubs and societies, see Oxford Sirens. A number of universities have their own American Football teams and also have a cheerleading team supporting them at game days (at home and away) in much the same way as American culture does.

The BCA also holds University competitions every year.

The National Council for Spirit Safety and Education (NCSSE) offers coaches' safety classes in the UK.

Canada

Competitive cheerleading has been established in Canada for about 30 years. Several provinces have non-government volunteer organizations that set out safety guidelines and host competitions, of particular note is the Ontario Cheerleading Federation, and the British Columbia Cheerleading Council. Provincial Championships are held by these organizations and they are well attended by both School cheerleading teams and the exploding population of all-star cheerleading teams.

All-star cheerleading is a relatively new phenomenon in Canada with limited cheer-only clubs in existence, though a multitude of city-run recreational program and gymnastic-club run teams exist.

Collegiate cheerleading in Canada is very popular, with virtually every University in Canada having a team that both competes for the National championship - held yearly since 1986 - and cheers CIS Football and Basketball. Programs of particular note are the University of Western Ontario Mustangs, who have won 21 consecutive National titles and have won at the National Cheerleading Association Championships in the International Division, the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks, the University of Waterloo Warriors and the McMaster University teams.

Cheerleading in Canada has participants as young as 4 years old. However, the majority of participants remain high school aged at 14-18 years old.

Cheerleading a Sport or not?

Many argue that Cheerleading is not a sport, mainly because it certainly did not start out as one, and its focus on entertainment. Supporters of the idea that cheerleading is a sport, cite competion and althletic ability as the reason it is a sport. If it is not a sport, then it is a performing art, which is supported by the fact that cheerleaders perform not play.

See also

• Mickey (song)
• Pom-pons
• Pom Squad
• List of cheerleaders
• American football
• Basketball

References

External links

• National Council for Spirit Safety and Education (NCSSE)
• American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Advisors (AACCA)
• National Cheerleading Association and National Spirit Group (NCA and NSG)
• United States All-Star Federation (USASF)
• British Cheerleading Association (BCA)
• UK Cheerleading Association (UKCA)
• Pro X - advanced stunting and tumbling
• Cheer Athletics - USASF World Champions
• Cheerleading.Net - Online Cheerleading & Spirit Source