Although, Cheer is not considered a sport by ESPN there are many reasons that cheer is a sport. Cheer should be considered a sport because it takes a lot of time and commitment, both mental and physical. Being a cheerleader, you take a whole year of your life learning a routine and putting your whole body and soul into that one routine.

There is also a chance you could get hurt being a cheerleader. Over time about 37,000 cheer-related injuries happened.

Most people think that being a cheerleader is just sitting on the sideline cheering for the football players but it’s more than that. There are competitive cheerleading teams like Pop Warner. Pop Warner is a football and cheer association for kids ages five to thirteen.

I was on the Saddleback Valley Pop Warner cheer team and overall it was a great experience. We had practices three days a week at different schools in the Saddleback Valley school district and games from August to September and competitions during the months of October to January/February. We had six competitions and we won all of them, including Pop Warner Nationals and JAMZ Cheer and Dance nationals.

Doing cheer also has a cost involved. If you do competitive cheer you have travel costs to some competitions.

In cheerleading you have to trust your team and trust that you can win or else you won’t win. You also have to push your body by doing conditioning and stretching to be able to stunt, tumble, and do jumps. Overall, as a cheerleader, you have to push your body, and be on the same team to do cheer. Cheer is an amazing sport and I hope that in reading this you are enticed to join cheer.