Cheering as an afterthought
So maybe being a cheerleader doesn’t have a lot to do with real cheering.
A high school in the Philadelphia area reportedly has a cheer squad that is so busy preparing for competitions, it doesn’t have time to cheer at the games.
This of course is a radical departure from the good old days. Once upon a time, cheerleaders went to games and raised school spirit. Then came various “national” competitions – involving only the schools that could afford to send their teams. These competitions can be time consuming, expensive and in some cases grade-killing.
Now we find a school that thinks it has an answer: Have a separate spirit squad that doesn’t practice for competitions. One that actually cheers.
I’ve had cheerleader daughters and would be OK if they just went to the games and cheered. They’ve done that…and a whole lot more. But to show you where cheerleading has gone, most of the time the cheer squad has been a lot more successful than the football team.
Which brings up another possibility: Maybe they should have the cheer squad go to competitions and make the football players cheer them on.
Do you think cheer competitions, many of them out of state, are a good thing? Or should cheerleading be limited to cheering for the school’s teams?