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aCtivitY 2.3
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26 Cheerleading is big business. Uniform sales alone are a multimillion-dollar industry. And there are thousands of cheer events all year across the nation, with competitors from ages 3 to 23. There are cheerleading all-star teams that do not cheer for any school but compete against one another.
27 “We don’t want the kids to be hurt. We want the kids to be safe,” said Tammy Van Vleet, who runs the Golden State Spirit Association, which trains cheerleading coaches and runs competitions in California. “It’s our priority to make sure
we provide that environment. ... Since about 1999, the degree of difficulty in cheerleading has just exploded.
28 And we’re seeing elite-level gymnasts on these cheerleading squads. And not just one athlete on the floor but 35 at a time, and [the] acrobatics and stunts that they are doing, you know, have not been matched.”
29 That’s why Van Vleet keeps two EMTs on site at major cheerleading exhibitions. But there are no uniform regulations that require such safety measures. ...
‘What is safe?’
30 Jim Lord is executive director of the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators, the largest cheerleading organization in the country. “Nightline” asked him whether cheerleading is safe.
31 “That’s a great question for any sport or athletics, is, ‘What is safe?’” Lord said. “There’s something that says, ‘Well, these are cheerleaders so they shouldn’t be hurt, they shouldn’t have any risks, they should be on the sidelines, and they shouldn’t be doing anything’—when a lot of girls have selected this as their favorite athletic activity. And so I think there’s that stigma, I think that goes along with it, for some reason.”
32 Lord says that recognizing cheerleading as a sport would not increase safety and would only complicate managing an activity that is still not primarily competitive for most cheer squads.
33 “You can minimize the chance of having an injury, and what that comes down to [is] having a coach that’s qualified,” said Lord. “There’s always going to be risk there, our job is to minimize that risk, especially from the catastrophic type of injury.”
34 But Archie charges that the current system of recommended safety and training measures does not protect kids. Many cheer coaches only have to pass an open-book test to gain a safety certification.
35 Lord believes that cheerleading is not as dangerous as the injury statistics indicate. He says that cheerleading may look more dangerous than mainstream sports because there’s no cheering season. Many cheerleaders practice all year, which means extended exposure to injury.
36 Still, critics believe that until cheerleading is recognized as a sport, safety will suffer.
37 If change is coming, it is too late for the Phommanyvongs. They are suing their daughter’s school, claiming that the school did not respond properly to her injury. The school declined to comment for this story.
38 “Too far,” said Patty Phommanyvong’s father, Say Phommanyvong. “They went too far. They should do step by step.”
39 “Maybe we can change,” said her mother, Vilay. “So I don’t want it to happen to another kid.”
My notes
Unit 3 • Changing Perspectives • Part 2: Most Dangerous “Sport” of All May Be Cheerleading 107
exhibitions: public events to show something
statistic: number(s) revealing information
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