Top five questions you should never ask a cheerleader
Most Hollywood movies perceive cheerleaders as a certain type. If your a guy cheerleader,your gay. If your a girl cheerleader, your dumb and ditzy. Also they are expected to have a really bad attitude because they are "IN" the crowd.
Why are cheerleaders so dumb?
Actually if your on a cheer team, you have to have a certain G.P.A . The lowest G.P.A you ca have is a 2.9. Also you can't have any D's or F's. If you have a D or F you have one week to make it up or your off the team. If you have a C or C- you still have to go to every practice, and you have to show up to every game but you have to sit out. Also the coaches check your grades twice a week, so you can never be behind in school without getting caught. Also if the coaches think that you aren't trying hard to pull up your grades they will give you extra conditioning. Example being, if you have practice five hours on a Saturday, you will have to stay an extra two hours. You have certain requirements that you have to accomplish before you can leave. You have to run a minimum of two miles. One hundred sit ups. Seventy five push ups. And then based on what you did to get the extra conditioning, the coaches will add to the requirements that need to be finished.
Can cheerleaders have bad attendance?
First of all, can anyone have bad attendance? So if your on any team, obviously it's stricter rules and consequences. You cant have any truancies. If you do you are automatically off the team. You are aloud to be tardy three times per semester, but you have two days to make it up in attendance school or you are on probation. You can be on probation for one week,if you still haven't made it up,your off the team. Also you can't have any unexcused absences, and if you do have any unexcused absences, you have one hour to call your parents to have them excuse it.
Are cheerleaders flexible?
We had practice five times a week for three hours each day during the week and five hours on Saturdays. The coaches are really tough and if we don't have our splits all the way, like completely touching the ground they would push us down until we have them to a perfection.
Are you mean to your rival team?
If we give bad attitude or if we are snobby in way to the opposing team that's an automatic strike. We are allowed up to three strikes per season. The coaches don't tolerate attitude in any way. They explain in the beginning of every season that as a cheerleader we represent not only our team, but also our school and our community.
How can you get kicked off the team?
You can get a strike for many different reasons for many different things. Whether its for bad grades, bad attendance or even getting in trouble in the community. Now the question is, what is trouble? You can't participate in any school pranks and you can't participate in pulling pranks on other schools. My freshman year on the varsity cheer team for Westlake, there were probably nine of the football players and seven of the cheerleaders went to Lehi High and spray painted the big wooden L for Lehi that a guy now in his 80's made sixty years ago. They spray painted it blue for west lake, smashed it and spread it all over the Lehi football field. Seven of those nine football players had scholarships to college and so did three out of the seven cheerleaders. That night every person that had a scholarship lost it. So, many things can get you kicked off the team.
I have cheered since I was six. Cheer was basically my whole life. The thing that irritates me the most is how the media portrays cheerleaders in general. It takes a lot of hard work, dedication, sweat and tears to be a cheerleader. We have to live up to every good expectation of us. After all the ups and downs of being a cheerleader, running out to the field to support the football players or dancing our butts off on the Matt in competition makes it so worth it.
6 comments:
Wow I really enjoyed reading this! I didn't realize how physically demanding cheer practice was and you all probably have a lot of emotional struggles too. It's tough being in the "IN" crowd and comparing yourself to all the other girls too. Says a lot about you that you've been cheering since you were six. I also love the media comparison. Strong work!
Ashlyn this makes cheerleading sound like a lot of fun. I've always wanted to be a cheerleader since I kinda cheered for my middle school in Florida. Chearleeders have tobe flexible to do practice like 20 hours a week.
Wow, that really makes me think of cheerleading as a physical demand, rather then just waving Pompoms around. My whole perspective of cheering was pretty stereotyped, now I understand the hard work it takes, some people probably judge that harshly as well, i will open my eyes to how people really must be like. You must be irritated about how others have treated you in the past I'm glad you wrote this and continue to follow what you believe in. Your the best keep it up.
This is really true! I've had quite a few friends that were cheerleaders and they are some of the smartest girls I know. Cheer leading is extremely stereotyped, just because you can cheer doesn't make you a ditz. Cheerleaders have to do workouts that are actually really challenging.
I agree with you best friend I never really was a cheerleader, but my sister was the captin at our school and everyone would always ask her these questions. Great job:)
I think it's great. One question I hate when people ask is do you think cheer leading is a sport? Well duh, do you know how hard we work. Great job you explained it perfectly.
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