You might think that the most interesting thing in this morning's New York Times was the photo essay about the Large Hadron Collider, but you'd be wrong. The most interesting article is this story about cheerleading.
Why is that, you ask? Because it's written about my home town:
Thirty girls signed up for the cheerleading squad this winter at Whitney Point High School in upstate New York. But upon learning they would be waving their pompoms for the girls' basketball team as well as the boys', more than half of the aspiring cheerleaders dropped out.
The eight remaining cheerleaders now awkwardly adjust their routines for whichever team is playing here on the home court -- "Hands Up You Guys" becomes "Hands Up You Girls"-- to comply with a new ruling from federal education officials interpreting Title IX, the law intended to guarantee gender equality in student sports.
That actually makes them sound pretty bad, as if they're opposed to cheering for the girls' teams, but the article explains later on that the decision forced local schools to drop some of the attractive features of cheerleading: to fit in equal number of games for both teams, they now only have cheerleaders at home games, as do most of the other teams in the league. They don't get to make road trips with the team, and they don't get to meet cheerleaders from other schools, because they're not making trips either.
Personally, I think the whole thing is deeply silly. When I played (well, when I sat the bench for the varsity), the cheerleaders weren't really an essential part of the deal-- mostly, they just took up space on the team bus. I would've happily done without, and I don't think the girls team were really suffering from the lack of cheerleaders (as the story notes, when they voluntarily cheered at a girls game a few years ago, they were asked to leave because they were annoying the team).
Besides, I'm kind of iffy about the whole institution of cheerleading, which strikes me as kind of objectifying-- young women in short skirts bouncing up and down to keep the fans fired up, and all that. In fact, it seems a little weird to send the female cheer squad to the girls games in the first place-- shouldn't a real Title IX challenge mandate the formation of a male cheerleading squad to go to the girls games and prance around in tight shorts?
But, hey, Whitney Point made the front page of the New York Times...
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Well cheerleading can be a sport/athletic activity, but as it progresses that way, it is less about supporting the team. Its more about what cool gynmastics the cheerleaders can do. My son is in HS, we go to a lot of games. Other than providing ogling material, noone pays them the slightest attention. They can actually get in the way of the enjoyment of the game. And the female athletes are not real pleased with the cheerleading crowd and vice versa. Two very different cultures/points of view, about a womens role, at least at some level. Our girls basketball team would NOT want the cheerleaders!!!!!!!
They should mandate that the cheerleaders go to track meets. This solves the two problems posed,
1) they get to travel as almost all track meets are away affairs
2) track meets tend to have 10+ schools for the invitationals so they can meet lots of other cheerleaders
On a more serious note, my interactions with cheerleaders in high school mostly consisted of being irritated with them for being in the way on the track, and their coachy person failing to figure out that we would keep going around the track multiple times and when we said "watch the track" we didn't mean "just hop off for a second and then stand in lane one again" we really meant "get off the track and stay off or we will flatten you", To be fair, we had the same problem with the girls lacross team. Interestingly we did not have any trouble with the boys lacross team. I think it was because a bunch of them (including their captain) trained with the track team in the winter and had a respect for what we did. In responce the track team stopped trying to steal all their stray balls so everyone came out ahead.
As a physicist and father of a daughter who was high school, college cheerleader and college cheerleader coach, I find myself in substantive agreement with perry. Cheerleaders see themselves as cultured, moral athletes, a linear combination of junior league, league of women's voters, and gymnasts. Some still see cheerleading as the generator of team excellence by coupling the audience enthusiasm, which they generate, into the on-field team's performance. Others see cheerleading as the most demanding form of team gymnastics, incorporating a strong aspect of artistic creativity. In the first case, they view any non acquiescence of the playing team to them as treasonous; in the second the playing team is irrelevant since only cheerleading competitions have any value.
Cheerleading should be on the same footing as band. Yes, they perform at the games, because there's a ready made audience there. And yes, their performances are supposed to boost "school spirit," just like the fight song. But they're performers in their own right, not really in service to the team. Ticket buyers get a football game, and band concert, and a gymnastics demonstration.
Does the band only play at boys' games? How would people react if they stopped allowing the band to travel with the team?
Now NFL cheerleaders seem to be a different story. They mostly just seem to bounce in place. Less chanting and crazy stunts, more standing around and looking pretty. I'm sure it's a lifelong dream for most of them, and they love it. I just don't personally love it when the cameraman keeps cutting to them, and then to some pretty blonde in the crowd, and then back to the cheerleaders... I definitely don't feel like the target audience, you know? But the commercials are worse.
Anyway the Bears (owned by a woman) don't have cheerleaders, so I only have to put up with the ogling shots when I watch other teams' games.
"I would've happily done without"
Come on. How would you have known to Be Agressive, B-E Aggressive.
Let's go Eagles!
Come on. How would you have known to Be Agressive, B-E Aggressive.
It was usually sort of a moot point, from way down at the end of the bench... Besides, I had Dave Brown to remind me to keep my hands up.
In 1972 I was in junior high, and when Title IX passed I was prompted to apply for the cheerleading squad. (As I recall, there wasn't really a "try out" -- this being junior high, anyone who wanted could be on the squad.) This caused great consternation amongst the administrators (not to mention the cheerleaders themselves). At that time, no one really understood the implications of Title IX and whether it applied to this case or not. The administrators eventually decided that I would be allowed on the squad. At this point the rest of the squad quit, and administrators started devising the best way to hide my body after killing me. Perhaps fortunately for everyone, I withdrew at that point. Although the mental image of the junior-high me (4'9", 70 lbs) as the sole "cheerleader" at a basketball game makes me wish that I'd gone through with it for at least one game.
"It was usually sort of a moot point, from way down at the end of the bench"
We did our own cheering down at the end of the bench. Unless the game was very well in hand, we weren't seeing the court. You knew it was nearly time when your Dad would stomp out of the gym.
As a once upon a time public school teacher, I had the misfortune to inherit the cheerleaders as part of another assignment. I could *not* get rid of that assignment fast enough. These girls were no where near athletes, were a real pain to supervise on away games, and so full of themselves it's a wonder they all didn't grow two bra sizes a season. As the one time coach of girls' varsity and JV basetball, I would have had no earthly use for them, and neither would have the players. I'm all for the creation of some 'exhibition sport' that displays girls' gymnastics, dance, and formation routines. But I have yet to see where they serve any function at high school games other than 'eye candy.'