Hidden Athletes

Hidden Athletes

What do you think of when you hear the word cheerleader? The words blonde, snob, ditzy, airhead, skanky, conceited, anorexic, popular, superficial, and non-athlete might come to mind. Well, contrary to popular belief these words don’t describe every cheerleader. All around the world cheerleaders are stereotyped and in a very negative way. Yes, there are cheerleaders out there that do fit the stereotype; I don’t deny that, but there are also other girls out there who fit that exact same stereotype and aren’t cheerleaders. So why is cheerleading the only sport that has this certain typecast? I’ve met many cheerleaders in my day, and yes some do fit the stereotype perfectly and others completely contradict it, but I have never met a cheerleader that fits the part of being a non-athlete. Cheerleaders being non-athletes is absolutely the farthest thing from the truth.
Some people consider us to be non-athletes because they don’t see cheerleading as a sport. Instead, they see it as just pretty girls standing on the sidelines yelling and chanting every now and then. Well they’re mistaken. Yes, cheerleaders do chant and yell, but people considering us to not be athletes are people who have been mislead about the sport. Before I was a cheerleader, I was a gymnast and like the people I described above I was one of them, I didn’t believe cheerleading was a sport either. Once I quit gymnastics though I joined cheerleading because it was the closest thing in relation to gymnastics. When I joined, my views on cheerleading did a complete three sixty.
I first discovered that I wanted to become a Westlake chaparral cheerleader when I was in the eighth grade, right after I had quit gymnastics. Back then, I was merely a stranger to the sport. I knew nothing about it, but it didn’t look hard to me. I wasn’t allowed to join Westlake cheerleading until I was a freshman at Westlake high school, but to be a freshman cheerleader you had to tryout in the eighth grade. So, I attended...

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