Girls, most dangerous Sport

           Fox News reports that two thirds of High School Catastrophic injuries for women come from cheerleading. Cheerleaders are gymnast but acquire many more injuries due to stunting. In the video above, it shows cheerleaders doing stunts which tosses the the cheerleader around 30 ft in the air. The fact that cheerleading is not recognized as a sport the data can be under reported, some schools consider cheerleading and activity or sport. Dr. Jake Deutsch from Hackensack University Medical Center tells Fox that cheerleading needs to be done in a controled environment, credited training, monitor children, and that regulations are in place. Cheerleading accounts for 65% of injuries in high school and 67% in college.

Booty Cheer

     Faylene Frampton a sixth grader from Nebraska tells the coach of her cheerleading team that she no longer feels comfortable doing a cheer that focuses the fans eyes on the athletes butts. The cheer is "jump shake your booty, jump shake your booty". The cheer does not have anything to do with football the sport the team cheers for but sometimes cheerleading is about getting the fans involved and not always about the sport that the cheerleaders are cheering for. Although, I don't think it is appropriate for young girls ranging from 5 yr old to 11 yr old to do a cheer that focuses the crowds eyes on the girls butts.

      There are alternatives to this problem. The cheer is telling the fans to shake their booty so if the moves are changed to take the staring off the butts it will eliminate both problems. However, no alternatives were attempted and after sharing her feelings with her coach she was off the team and the coach requested she apologize to the whole team for "disrespecting them". To me it seems as though there is something missing in the story, like the other side.

Faylene tells NBC Sports that she feels she made the right choice.

Cheerleading Safety Month

 All the years of being a cheerleader and a cheerleading coach i never knew that their was an actual cheerleading safety month. The month of March. Safety is the number one priority in cheerleading and should be with any sport. With injuries increasing every year in the sport many of the injuries come from common lack of knowledge of safety procedures and just knowing the skill set of the cheerleaders that are being coached and performing.  In the state of Florida coaches have to be certified and attend many safety seminars, I can not say the same for all the States. Even in Florida alone all the counties have their own rules on the level of difficulty with stunts and tumbling the members are allowed to perform. In Brevard County, FL the cheerleaders are not allowed to perform basket toss.  According to the National Center of Catastrophic Sport Injuries, research showed an dramatic amount of injuries over the last 20 years from 5,000 to 28,000 injuries. In the November 2009 Journal of Athletic Training published three studies that were done about cheerleading injuries. The study included fall related injuries, the type of team and events over the year, and the surfaces on which practice occurred. The studies showed that the softer the ground the better, no duh, and that stunts are dangerous and the harder the levels(less regulations) the more injuries. For more exact statistics check out the Journal of Athletic Training. I myself tore more ACL and Meniscus in my knee making me have arthroscopic knee surgery from cheerleading.

For more safety tips you can visit National Cheer and Safety and Parents Guide to Cheerleading Safety

Former Cheerleader, Current NFL quarterback (Quinn Porter)

        Pom-Poms is his nickname. Quinn Porter is his real name.
Porter was just signed by NFL Washington Redskins as a Running back. He cheered at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, AL. He never intended on cheering when he went to orientation but after being approached by to girls and offered scholarship money Porter jumped on board. Being on the sideline gave him the chance to study the offense as well as keep in shape and learn cool flips, not to mention tossing up cheerleaders. Porter is now on the Redskins but was previously with the Green Bay Packers. I love a man that can do both!

pictures from yahoosports.com

For more on Quinn Porter.

Cheerleading Bloopers!!

Bloopers!!! Everybody loves Bloopers!!!  There are many cheerleading falls, tumbles, and unsyncrinized routines. I wanted to blog and post some funny falls, but none that any athlete is seriously injured.
 If a routine is not rehearsed well enough to perform either water it down or take our the girl on the end who clearly missed a few practices.

One fall in a routine is bad, but two is even worse.

I'm not sure what happened to the girl in this flip but it looks like her feet slipped. Either way it looked painful. OOooohhhChhhhh!!!!!

I cant tell if this is real but it looks awesome. I cant help but to think of how her head made it through, but if you watch after the flip she is holding her head like it hits the rim. That is what i call a "slam dunk".

What are they thinking?? A human cheerleading field goal. I hope their kicker made it through the post better than they did.

The dancing is horrible and am I the only one who notices that they keep repeating the same moves over and over. This ends like "ring around the posey" "they all fall down". Word of advice for fliers, never grab onto another teammate when falling because as this video shows it will just bring down the whole pyramid.


This is just funny. I'm sure the idea is that they all do back tucks while still holding each other in a line. Brandon Allstars are Awesome, Ive seen them in person.

This routine is at Cheersport in Atlanta, Georgia which is one of the hardest competitions because of how many teams register in every division. In 2004 I was on Miami Elite and we took first place at this competition. This routine shows how great Brandon Allstars are but a routine is never perfect. At about 1 min and 30 sec a boy falls during the tumbling sequence, and as always trained in cheerleading the team will keep performing around the injured athlete. With or without him.

Cheerleaders Outraged Over Uniforms!!!!!

A couple Connecticut high school cheerleaders went to the School Board in an outrage over their cheerleading uniforms. The cheerleaders complaints are that the uniforms expose their midriffs and as a Connecticut Post reports another cheerleader felt uncomfortable in the uniform and lessened her self esteem.  The Daily News reports that assistant superintendent Denise Clemons backs the uniforms because, the school has ordered black body suits to wear under their uniforms.

My opinion is that wearing the uniforms increases their self esteem because no matter how you look in your uniform, the cheerleader usually feels a sense of belonging to a team or something greater/important. If cheerleaders want to be considered athletes than they have to also look at the sports that the athletes wear less than the cheerleaders such as gymnastics, swimming, ballet/dance.

San Francisco State University coach faces embezzlement charges!!

In  September Ashely Haley, 23, the Cheerleading Coach at San  Francisco State University is facing embezzlement charges. Haley is accused of embezzling close to $22,000 from the team. She can possibly be charged with 12 counts of grand theft, 16 false pretense with money, and one count of embezzlement. Haley has pleaded not guilty to the San Francisco Supreme Court. Haley allegedly collected money from the cheerleaders and used it for personal uses such as, trip, .rent, clothing, food, etc.

Local Bay area news KTVU reports live.
If Haley is convicted guilty, I find that very disturbing. Haley wasn't a hired coach she was a member herself. Her stealing from her own teammates is just a shame. College life is hard enough financially and to be stolen from can really set anybody back.