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2-4-6-8 Who should we appreciate?

2-4-6-8+Who+should+we+appreciate%3F
Graphic by Olivia Crosby ’15

Pompons, hair bows and catchy cheers have long been synonymous with high school and collegiate sporting events.

Because our cheerleaders have ditched the Grease poodle skirts and bobby socks for sparkly uniforms and that them to flip, leap, and tumble, they have soared to new heights.

Not only do they cheer at football and basketball games, but they train for hours to succeed in their own competitions. This year, they made it to regionals and showed they work just as hard as any other sports team. They are starting to defeat the outdated stereotype of cheerleaders not being athletes themselves that attaches itself to every pair of pom poms.

But they only cheer at football and basketball games. They energize the crowd, who in turn, energize the players – male players that is.

In elementary and even middle school, it wasn’t uncommon to see a girl on a boys Little League team or buckling a flag football belt. But as these boys and girls grow up, it becomes a developmental improbability for the girls to throw as hard or run as fast. Similarly, girls a typically more flexible than their male counterparts which can lend itself to the types of flips and splits that cheerleaders do all the time.

And while the case can be made that male athletes excel in certain sports due to their anatomical ability to build more muscle mass, that does not mean their female counterparts are any less impressive. The girls’ volleyball team came in second in the state, and the girls’ basketball team has long been known for its annual appearances in the state tournament.

But it is undoubtedly easy for a so-called Superfan to sit on the bleachers and profess girls’ sports “easy,” “stupid,” “unathletic,” and yet we don’t see these same fans hitting the courts themselves. We’d venture a bet that Hannah Debalsi could run faster, Amelia Brackett could jump higher, and Elizabeth Coogan could shoot harder than a lot of those naysayers.

Yet, we never hear the cheerleaders screaming their names or see them putting punny posters up in the cafeteria with their jersey numbers on them.

While the tradition of cheerleaders attending boys’ basketball and football games alone does currently exist, maybe it is only being carried on because it’s a tradition. But we think it is time for a change. We realize this isn’t the cheerleaders’ doing, but they can be the ones to start a new tradition– a tradition where boys and girls get the support, crowds, and cheers they deserve. Let’s start a new tradition where every team can rock steady.

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