In Defense of Cheerleading. A cheerleaders manifesto

    Cheerleaders usually don't get a lot of credit for what they do. Most people think that all we do is stand on the sidelines of football games or basketball games, but it's really a lot more than that. We have to work really hard to get what we want, and try our hardest to be the best there is. We workout really hard and have to push ourselves to be the best we can be. Some people think that it looks really easy, but it's usually because they have never tried it. Cheerleaders deserve a lot more credit than what we get, because we work just as hard or harder to get to be better and better every practice. Most cheerleaders are in the gym any where from 2-6 days a week, as long as we can be, working on more things than we can get better at.  We don't always have a coach in front of us telling us what we are doing wrong, sometimes we just have to know, and teach ourselves the right thing to do, so that we can get better, and be a better cheerleader.
     Most of my free time is spent in the gym trying to get better, and working on the things that I need to get better at. When people see cheerleaders at their school they usually think that's what every cheerleader is like, but it's usually not. Competitive cheerleaders usually work harder and longer than most school cheer teams. One of the hardest things is to work so hard to get the tumbling that I have, and the other skills like jumps and stunts, and people to tell me that cheer isn't even a sport. Cheer is as much of a sport as football is, and is even a more dangerous sport. There is usually a lot more injuries in cheer than there is in football, and when we are competing, and we get hurt we don't stop in the middle, we have to tough it out for the rest of the time, and do our best even being hurt. We also only get two and a half minutes to show how good we are, and how hard we worked to get where we are. More people need to try cheer, to realize that it truly is a sport, that involves lots of work and technique, and realize that cheer really is as much of a sport than any sport out there.