Cheerleading is Not a Sport
Gee, ya think?
A judge has confirmed what most people already know. Cheerleading is all fine and good, but — a sport??? Therefore, a university cannot point to its cheerleading team and say “Why no, we don’t discriminate against women’s sports. See those cheerleaders over there?”
Title IX requires all universities to provide equal opportunities for men and women in school athletics. Quinnipiac University tried to make an end run around Title IX by eliminating the women’s varsity volleyball team and replacing it with a competitive cheerleading squad.
The Connecticut ACLU’s executive director said this decision “gives force to the law that has opened doors for women over the last 30 years.”
As one of the comments at the end of the linked article says, this is like Reagan saying ketchup and relish are vegetables, so school lunch programs don’t need to provide any additional nutrition.
My favorite example of this kind of “reasoning” was back in the ‘80s. In California, a regional agency was trying to get all cities to provide a certain amount of low-income housing. The wealthy-beyond-wealthy (and more sterile than an operating room) town of Tiburon told this agency that they were already complying with this, because affluent residents’ servants’ quarters qualified as low-income housing.
Labels: Quinnipiac University cheerleading volleyball, Title IX
posted by Tom Harper @ 11:01 PM
10 Comments:
A few thoughts come to mind, I guess I need sleep. Ha.
Whenever someone mentions Cheerleader I think Of George Bush,W as a cheerleader. Enough said on that one.
I think it's damn white of Tiburon to include all them low class workers into the humble abode. May they be stabbed in the face while they sleep.
Just saying...;)
Wait. They had an actual chick sport and wanted to replace it with a chick non-sport? Might as well replace dude hoops with dude WWE while we're at it.
Our daughter is a HS cheerleader. I completely disagree with this ruling. The ruling about not being a sport part, not the rest. The school was wrong to try and eliminate volleyball. That was all about money. Competitive cheer squads = dollars.
The sport part. These kids work out, practice and train year round to improve themselves as athletes. They take gymnastics (a sport) and dance to better themselves. My daughter's team is practices 4 hours per day 4+ days a week all summer. Football sure doesn't.
As crazy as this country is they'll make cheerleading into the next reality show and the next thing you know there'll be scholarships for it.
I agree with everything EXCEPT cheerleading is not a sport. A competitive cheerleader has to be every bit as agile, coordinated, strong, and as much a team player as any football, basketball, or baseball player, soccor player, wrestler, or runner. It requires everything any other sport requires. I'm talking competitive cheerleading here, not the "stuff" you see the dallas cheerleaders, and other similar squads preform.
Um, don't know how I feel about this, I am a little torn. I was a cheerleader and on some athletic teams through high school and part of college. CL we had to learn gymnastics, and be good at it, to make the team year after year. To cut off a volleyball team though, nope why can't we have both?
Well Tiburon, Marin county Tom come on now. Tiburon if I am not mistaken means shark, so make of that what you will.
I see the point on what Kate and Paul and Kerry are saying. Big college Cheerleading is a very competitive event, both sexes compete and you can appreciate the work they put in.
But Cheerleading is also intended to be a supporting event to the regular (male) sports as opposed to being a sport. We are not going to take Women in sports seriously (and try to compete in world events like the Olympics) until we fully support Sports that women play like Volleyball, Softball, Tennis, Basketball etc.
BTW other California rich cities were holding on to see what happened to that Tiburon case as they were trying to use the same argument. Last I heard there are still some hold outs
Erik
Who knew? I always thought that Cheerleading was a step above pole dancing, which also requires extensive training.
Tim: Yup, the good people of Tiburon were actually willing to let those lowly darkskinned furriners live right there with them. So touching.
Randal: There you go, fake wrestling instead of basketball.
Paul and Kerry: I agree with the court's decision because of what Erik says below, that cheerleading is a supporting event to another sport (i.e. football), so it's hard to think of it as a sport.
But I agree with you that there's a huge amount of physical training involved. I wasn't aware of this until I saw some of the pictures linked to the article, plus your comment and Kate's comment. Until yesterday, I pretty much thought of cheerleading as what I remembered from high school (which was a looong time ago), people just jumping up and down yelling "Fight Team Fight."
Demeur: The next reality show, I wouldn't doubt it.
Kate: That's true, I've learned from the pictures linked to that article, plus Paul and Kerry's comment and your comment. I had pretty much just thought of cheerleading as what I remembered from high school, the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, etc.
Jess: Both cheerleading and volleyball -- makes sense. You're right, Tiburon means shark.
Erik: So other cities are using the same argument as Tiburon? I didn't even know this was still pending. I read about it in Herb Caen's column a long time ago; I wasn't even sure if he was serious or just joking, making up another "only in Marin" story.
Lew: Pole dancing, there you go.
I hear that cheerleading is actually the most dangerous school sport there is, so I figure if they can get their necks broken, it's a sport.
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