Personal Injury Law

School Safety / Cheerleading: It was safer when we just sat pretty...

By Megan Roth

There's an age-old saying: "out with the old, in with the new." Well, I think it's safe to say the time-told expression applies to the sport of cheerleading - yes, sport. Gone are the days of "Rah-rah-rah" and stringy pom-poms; it's no longer about just looking pretty. Today, the sport is as much about competition as it is about supporting a team (sometimes even more so); it requires strength, conditioning, flexibility, endurance, and stamina. Cheerleading is rugged - and I'm willing to testify.

Though the NCAA does not recognize cheerleading as a technical sport, the four million cheerleaders in the USA beg to differ - and I'm no exception. I was on my high school's cheer squad for four years (three of which I was on varsity, which more than doubled J.V. in terms of intensity). When it came to competition, perfection was key. Thus, practices were intense and performances were fierce. In years past, I would have been the girl on top of the pyramid; in today's society, I was the flier - literally. Our squad did tosses, libertys, hitches, cradles, and twist-downs, just to name a few. I can't tell you how many times I stunt went down (aka I hit the ground from one, sometimes as high as two stories up).

Let me tell you: being tossed in the air as high as someone is physically capable of tossing and not being caught is neither easy nor enjoyable. I remember lying on the gym floor, unable to breathe with black dots dancing in front of my eyes after my partners neglected to catch me. I remember countless sprained wrists, ankles, and knees, and I remember jumping right back into a routine before those sprains even had time to heal.

Regardless of what I thought at the time, such injuries carry serious risks. In fact, the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research claims the majority of catastrophic sports (approximately 65%) related injuries to females occur from cheerleading.

Contrary to what one may think, the rates of injury don't decrease as individuals get further into the sport; in fact, it's just the opposite: college cheerleaders experience injuries more than five times as often as high school cheerleaders. This isn't due to a lack of experience of reckless disregard for proper form,, but rather it's the result of increasingly challenging activities. I'm telling you, cheerleaders aren't messing around.

Want to know just how serious they are? I'll post tomorrow on the correlation between cheerleading and long-term injuries. The statistics are astounding, and the injuries are worse.

Full post as published by Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer on September 21, 2008 (boomark / email).