Cheerleaders and Cheerleading Deserve respect

By: Kaitlyn Shanks
M&M Tipsters
I have been born and raised in Houston, Texas. In many parts of Texas, cheerleading is a very popular sport. One of the reasons it is so popular is because many of the winning teams are from Texas! If you are in the right competitions, CHEERLEADING IS HARD! Cheerleaders have to be built with muscle and be extremely limber, if not they could easily sustain an injury. The tumbling that cheerleaders do is incredibly difficult; it requires accuracy, speed, strength, and flexibility. When gymnasts do the same sort of stunts they are said to be amazing athletes, so why do people treat cheerleaders differently?
I used to participate in cheerleading, but I stopped because it was so time consuming. All of my friends that participate in competitive cheerleading spend at least twenty hours of their week in practice; that does not include rehearsing at home. Does cheerleading still sound like it is not a sport? Have you ever been in a grueling completion where you have worked for weeks practicing dance moves, stunts, tumbling, and, of course, the cheers?
Many colleges give scholarships for cheerleading; now why would they do that if they did not think that cheerleading was an important sport? Now, with cheerleading evolving from being a little dance on the sidelines at football games to full out gymnastics routines in competitions all about their own sport, the respect given to cheerleading should also grow. They should get respect for their hard work and the effort they put into their sport. A good deal of respect would be given to any other athlete if they won a competition, but many people do not take cheerleading competitions seriously so they work hard, win, and get no respect. Is that fair?
Most cheerleaders are also given a bad reputation just because people are stereotypical. Cheerleaders are said to be stupid, ditzy, and generally not educated. This, however, is not the case. Just because you enjoy cheerleading and tumbling does not drop your IQ, in fact many school cheerleading teams require certain grades and conduct scores for you to be allowed on the team. My step-mother was the captain of the cheerleading team and was in the top 10 intellectuals in her class, she loved cheerleading but, like most cheerleaders, she knew that her grades were more important. She graduated high school in three years, got a full scholarship to college, graduated in three years, went to law school and graduated in two years. Sure, not all cheerleaders have their law degree when they are 21 years old, but most are not stupid. Cheerleaders and cheerleading deserve respect.

Kaitlyn is a 9th grader at Memorial High School in Houston, Texas.