Congratulations to Coweta County’s Northgate High School Cheerleading Squad on their ninth Georgia High School Association (GHSA) State Championship and their fourth in a row. Yes, old folks, and that includes me, cheerleading is competitive.
Back in the day … well, way back in the day … cheerleaders had a fairly specific and limited function. They led the student body and spectators in cheering for the team. Especially the football and basketball teams.
While the media of the day often spoofed cheerleaders as pretty but snobby airheads of questionable morals, the cheerleaders in my high school did not fit the media stereotypes at all. To be sure, they were pretty. But, in my experience, at least, they were some of the nicest people at Kingsport’s Dobyns-Bennett High School up in the Holston Valley of the Appalachian Mountains in northeast Tennessee. On the field or on the court, they worked almost as hard as the athletes as they kept the crowd engaged and as they encouraged the players.
Our cheerleaders were certainly athletic and the ones I knew were also smart. They were popular, but I don’t think they were popular because they were cheerleaders but because they were genuinely liked and admired by their fellow students.
But, as athletic and hardworking as they were, today’s cheerleaders are in a whole new classification of competitors. Today’s cheerleaders often start as young as 5 or 6 years old. In fact, one college coach said if they haven’t started by age 10, they may not make it at all.
There are classes and schools that train up potential competitive cheerleaders. And, not only is cheerleading an athletic endeavor, it is dangerous. Very dangerous.
While cheerleaders were always subject to strains and sprains (and the occasional runaway fullback who accidentally smashed into a cheerleader while being tackled on the sidelines), cheerleaders now account for more catastrophic injuries than basketball, soccer, and even football.
The number of cheerleading injuries treated at hospitals and emergency rooms number nearly 30,000 annually. Some two-thirds of all serious high school female injuries are due to cheerleading accidents. A study in the Journal of Pediatrics has deemed cheerleading to be more dangerous than football. Yet, because in many circles cheerleading is not considered a “sport,” cheerleading injuries are not considered — thus, football is still considered the most dangerous high school sport.
The most common cheerleading injuries are: Ankle sprains, knee injuries, wrist injuries, low-back pain, head injuries, and catastrophic injuries – which includes paralysis and death.
An article in “The Telegraph” reported, “At least three deaths and numerous cases of permanent paralysis are blamed on falls and collisions to the end of last year, and since then two more cheerleaders have died. Most recently in April … Lauren Chang from Massachusetts was killed by an accidental kick to her chest during a cheerleading competition at a local gym.”
All of this is to say that, if competitive cheerleading isn’t officially considered a sport, it should be. The participants work as hard as any other athlete and, in many cases, cheerleading requires superior athletic prowess.
Congratulations to all those who participate as cheerleaders and especially to the Northgate High School squad who continue to show the state of Georgia how it’s done.
[David Epps is the pastor of the Cathedral of Christ the King, 4881 Hwy. 34 E., Sharpsburg, GA between Newnan and Peachtree City (www.ctk.life). He is the bishop of the Charismatic Episcopal Diocese of the Mid-South which consists of Georgia and Tennessee and the Associate Endorser for the Department of the Armed Forces, U. S. Military Chaplains, ICCEC. He may contacted at davidepps@ctk.life.]
