Competitive cheerleaders are dying for their sport, reports ABC.
When the news broke that 20-year-old Lauren Chang of Newton, Mass., had died during a cheerleading contest last week, there was one person who was not shocked. Jessica Smith, a 19-year-old Californian, says that’s because it almost happened to her.
Experts say serious injuries will only increase as stunts get more complicated.
Chang died on April 14 during a meet in Worcester, Mass., after she was accidentally kicked in the chest while performing a “basket catch” routine.
“Lauren died doing what she loved … cheerleading and being with her friends,” her sister, Nancy Chang, told reporters last week.
Smith came close to losing her own life after falling 15 feet and landing on her head at a meet in Sacramento, Calif.
My niece was on a cheerleading team when she was seven. As the smallest girl on the squad, she wanted to do a routine where she’d be thrown up in the air and caught by team mates. “The girls can throw you,” the coach said, “but I’m not sure they can catch you.”
I cheered my freshmen and senior years in high school in Columbia, South Carolina. Cheerleading was an amazing outlet for me and I met a lot of great girls that I am still friends with. I loved going to practice because I was never bored and I also enjoyed cheering for the athletes in front of their parents and our peers. I felt a sense of school pride. Cheerleading didn’t make me feel above anyone. I was still the regular girl that did all my homework and had bad days, but I had a common bond with 19 other girls and that was cheering. Both years that I cheered, I was a base because of my size and strength. Bases are responsible for holding the flyer in the air while they pull stunts. In high school, I remember always telling the flyer that she would never fall while in my hands because I would not be held responsible if something was to happen to her. Luckily, my squad never had major injuries. Our coach tried to prevent them by clearly stating that if anyone was stressed out, angry, sad, or sick, then they needed to sit out of practice or a routine so that squad members would not be affected, but not all injuries can be avoided. My condolences are to the family of the cheerleader that lost her life doing what she loved.
Cheerleading has become dangerous and competitive over the years. It is just like sports in the fact that injuries are common. When I taught middle school, I sometimes watched the coaches working with the cheerleaders and held my breath when the girls were tossed in the air. Guidelines need to be established and enforced to keep injuries at a minimum.
Hey! When I was in high school (1968-1971) we didn’t have all of this acrobatic nonsense masquerading as cheerleading.
Here’s how it worked: Each year we had cheerleader tryouts, and the student body would elect the six best looking girls in the school to be cheerleaders for the next year.
During games, instead of doing stupid pet tricks, the cheerleaders would—get this—LEAD CHEERS!
In addition, the “biggest†girls would jump up and down, and we guys would watch them bounce. Doesn’t that seem like a reasonable division of labor?
Since everything that’s done today is done “for the children,†I propose we eliminate the unacceptably high risk of injury or death from today’s bogus cheerleading styles and return to the way God intended things to be.