Cheerleading Persuasive Research Paper

What immediately comes to your mind when someone says cheerleading? Most people think of pom poms and prissy blonde girls with bad attitudes and worse grades, cheering YMCA on the sidelines. That may have been the case in the 1980’s, but cheerleading has evolved. It may be hard to understand , but cheerleading is an extreme sport. It is scary, demanding, athletic, and very, very, hard. You would never think something called the “pancake” could kill you, but it’s true. Cheerleading should be considered a sport, because it meets all the requirements for sports, they deserve recognition for their hard work, and people thinking it is not a sport is actually a danger to their health. First of all, cheerleading meets all of the proper requirements to be considered a sport. The definition of a sport is “ an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment”. Cheerleading requires much physical exertion and skill, cheerleaders go through extreme conditioning and lift people in the air. It is impossible to do a routine without breaking a sweat. Cheerleading competitions consist of teams who work together and have to trust each other completely.

William Fournier, 7th grader, says he thinks cheerleading is not a sport “Cuz I think so,”. This shows that most of the opinions that cheerleading is not a sport is purely pathos related. Jack Deitch says “A sport can’t be within a sport,”, referring to cheerleaders cheering on the sidelines for basketball and football games. This is also not true, cheerleaders cheer for basketball and football games to support their community, and most cheerleaders don’t cheer on the sidelines. The main focus for a cheerleader is the