In 1982, a decision was made to discontinue the cheerleading team at Hopkins School after eight years of running. The decision to discontinue cheerleading was made by the National Association of Independent Schools of which Hopkins was a member of. The National Association of Independent Schools felt that cheerleading promoted cliques and the schools being split into popular and unpopular groups. Other sports, however, who may have a bigger denotation of being bullies, and creating to the idea of a high school social hierarchy, such as Varsity football, and even basketball teams, were forced to be terminated by the NAIS. Cheerleading, a sport with primarily female members, especially at the time, was the only team that was forced to leave. …show more content…
In fall 1982, the cheerleading team organized the first pep rally at Hopkins during Homecoming week. The Razor acknowledged the cheerleading teams as the main reason of the success of the team. This type of praise, however, was not common for cheerleaders, in fact, they were often left out of articles relating to the athletic teams. During the eighties, at the beginning of each athletic season, The Razor wrote a “Get to Know Your Captains” piece, containing a short, satirical piece describing each of the Varsity Captains at that time. During the fall season, the captains of the Football, Field Hockey, and both Soccer teams were all given showcased in this article. One team captain, however, was missing. The captain of the Hopkins Cheerleading team. Based on this, it can be concluded that the cheerleading team was not viewed as a “Varsity Sport.” One student described the cheerleaders in a Razor article as “the football team’s cheerleaders.” They were also the only sport not to get their own page in the yearbook, and instead had one team picture in the corner of the football page. The cheerleading team did not play any games, a fact that poked fun at in the Hopkins student newspaper when a student wrote that, “cheerleading is now the only sport to be undefeated.” Even though the team did not have any games, they still practiced at the same time of the Varsity sports for the same amount …show more content…
Seventy-eight percent of the students were aware that Hopkins had a cheerleading team at one point. At first, when asked if they they would support a return of the Cheerleading team, thirty-six percent of respondents say that they would, and only 14 percent said they would not. However, after being asked if they would still support the cheerleading team if it had to replace an already established Varsity team, the number of students who said they would not support the team rose to forty-four percent, and the number that said they would support it dropped to only eight percent. One student says that the reason they would not support the team because “I feel like a competitive varsity sport is more important than a cheerleading team. I understand that they can have competitions too, but I guess it's just an unconscious bias that has developed in me.” Another student in support of the Cheerleading remarks that “Cheerleading at other schools is considered a sport, so why not at Hopkins? It is also an athletic commitment (in a way).” One student even says, “Why would we get rid of a varsity sport for cheerleading? They are 2 separate activities.” Other reasons are that one sport should not replace another sport at Hopkins, or that there would not be enough interest to form a strong