Ellie’s team actually made it to third place in the Regional finals one year and she’ll be out there again this year, mostly with the same seventh grade girls, who have come up through the program. Hers is the same grueling schedule, two hours Monday through Friday in August and two hours, three days a week right through to November. What does she like the most? “I like stunting,” she says, referring to impossible pyramids of girls held in place by “backspotters” and made dramatic by “flyers,” smaller girls, who hang off the structure like gargoyles. But the real rush comes during the competitions, where breath-baiting routines are a strict secret until unveiled before the judges. Ellie reports that the number one concern (and point awards) are for safety.
That’s because it turns out that if you want to keep your daughter safe, she’d do better going out for football than for cheerleading. A report in the January issue of Pediatrics revealed that hospitals over the past thirteen years saw more than 200,000 injuries tied to cheerleading, with almost 40 percent of those occurring to the legs, ankles, or feet. And while Ellie said that she’d only seen minor injuries, everyone is aware just how difficult and treacherous this innocent-sounding sport can be. Give me an O-U-C-H!
Both kids said they had met many friends through the program, though judging by the swarm of boys wanting TJ to come and play, friend shortages didn’t seem to be problem in the house.
Kalie Martin, 11, is also a cheerleader. “I started in fifth grade and went with one of my friends and really enjoyed it. I really like the competitions because everything pays off there. You get to meet a lot of people from other schools, too.”
For Stephen Scholz, who is 12, friends were also a factor. “I didn’t want to play hockey anymore,” he said. “My friends were all talking about Pop Warner and it sounded like so much fun. I went along and the coaches were really nice.”
“It’s pretty stress free,” he said. “Once I started playing the first couple of times, I really liked it. I thought if I kept going, my team could stay together.” For Stephen, about half the coaches have stayed the same though there are usually a few new kids every year. “The new kids—we help them and then just look after them.”
(This has got to be a change for the better from the old days when new kids were generally given the business until they wanted to leave town. Another difference from previous times is that all the kids on the team get to play in every game. This avoids situations like the one encountered by a not-very-athletic friend of mine named Eric when we were about nine, who almost never got to participate on his little league team. “They’re saving me for a big play,” he said to me one day, my heart almost breaking for him.)