{"id":99439,"date":"2025-09-27T14:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T14:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=99439"},"modified":"2025-09-27T14:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T14:58:07","slug":"breaking-cheerleaders-like-any-athletes-often-get-attention-for-their-athleticism-skill-and-the-hard-work-they-put-into-their-craft-for-many-cheerleading-involves-rigorous-training-precision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=99439","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: Cheerleaders, like any athletes, often get attention for their athleticism, skill, and the hard work they put into their craft. For many, cheerleading involves rigorous training, precision, and teamwork \u2014 all of which require a lot of dedication and athleticism. While media and pop culture sometimes focus on their appearance or put them in stereotypical roles, it\u2019s important to remember that cheerleaders are athletes who perform at a high level, not just for entertainment but also to support and energize their teams."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Imagine an army of angry cheerleaders, ablaze with rage, shaking their pompoms furiously in your face.<\/p>\n

Sexy, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

NOT REALLY. Nothing sexy about cheerleaders. Get your mind out of the gutter and focus on their serious, determined athleticism. I once made the mistake of objectifying cheerleaders, and that is precisely what inflamed their wrath.<\/p>\n

It was back in 2010; I had voiced an opinion somewhere about the news that 40 per cent of British schools were offering cheerleading as a sport. I don\u2019t know if they still do. I don\u2019t know if they did then! It was just the sort of thing that newspapers like to report, however exaggerated or genuine, because everyone enjoys thinking about cheerleaders. And it\u2019s the sort of thing that I like giving an opinion about (if required to pontificate somewhere), because it isn\u2019t at all important. It\u2019s ripe for debate but inconsequential and ultimately funny, like the horsemeat scandal of 2013 or the planning disaster of the Millennium Dome. As opposed to, you know, Ukraine, the Middle East and climate change. There\u2019s no joy in giving your opinions there. You won\u2019t say anything funny, you\u2019ll be cancelled if you try, nobody who disagrees will change their mind and everyone who agrees will think you said it wrong. I\u2019m with Henry Higgins: stick to the weather and everybody\u2019s health.<\/p>\n

So, I voiced the instinctive opinion that schoolgirls should do \u201cproper sport\u201d, rather than just dancing near the proper-sport-doing boys. I expressed squeamishness about the skimpy costumes and the supporting role. I had just seen the recently released film Made in Dagenham<\/em>, about those heroic women who walked out of the Ford plant in 1968 to fight for equal pay, and was coming over all second-wave feminist. I said that our schoolgirls should put their trousers back on and try to score a goal.<\/p>\n

My word, the rage that ensued! There was a storm of seething cheerleading fans (cheerleaders\u2019 cheerleaders, you might say) who were incensed by the notion that theirs was a supporting role, or a predominantly aesthetic one, or anything other than an independent, standalone, muscular and serious expression of athletic achievement. Their fury came in the form of an organised and extremely vocal collective. Which I suppose was only to be expected.<\/p>\n

I was a bit baffled. I grew up on American teen literature and romcoms in which the cheerleading squad was always the preserve of the in-crowd, the pretty girls who dated footballers. Were they not <\/em>supposed to look sexy? Was the point of it not <\/em>to support a sports team? This went against everything US culture had ever taught.<\/p>\n

But I am nothing if not open-minded; I resolved from that moment on to think of, and certainly speak of, cheerleading as a worthwhile and independent sport.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I was thinking about this while watching America\u2019s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, the second series of which recently dropped on Netflix. There is a whole genre, now, in cheerleading documentaries: there is Cheer <\/em>about the Navarro College Bulldogs cheerleading team from Texas; Cheer Squad<\/em>, about the Great Whites Canadian cheerleading team; Cheerleader Nation <\/em>about high school cheerleaders in Kentucky and its follow-up Cheerleader Generation<\/em>; there\u2019s also Cheer: Full Out <\/em>and Cheerleader U <\/em>which are two different shows about two different groups of cheerleaders who are also from Kentucky; American Cheerleader <\/em>about the National High School Cheerleading Championship; Cheerleaders <\/em>about the California All Stars, and that is just scratching the surface of the \u201cdocuseries\u201d and not even starting on the cheerleading dramas.<\/p>\n

Both Cheer <\/em>and America\u2019s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders <\/em>were created, produced and directed by a man called Greg Whiteley, and \u2013 at the risk of making my old assumption again \u2013 he certainly does seem interested in cheerleaders. Nothing wrong with that! They are interesting! But if I were his wife, I reckon I\u2019d be saying: \u201cWhy don\u2019t you make one that isn\u2019t about cheerleaders now?\u201d<\/p>\n

The episode I watched (series one, episode one) baffled me all over again, as it appeared fully to vindicate what I used to think 15 years ago, before my education at the hands of the internet. The cheerleaders are all female, in skimpy clothes and make-up, describe their activity as \u201cdancing\u201d and do it on the sidelines of football matches. They dream of performing at the Super Bowl, which will happen if the boys make it to the Super Bowl<\/em>. But, in episode one, the boys get knocked out. So the girls are knocked out with them. Their fate is entirely dependent on the sportsmen\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but this is the American South: when one cheerleader states her intention to perform again next year, the coach asks, \u201cAnd does your fianc\u00e9 support that?\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the main difference for me personally between 2025 and 2010 is that I have daughters now. Looking back at my vicious attempts at wit, 15 years ago, at the expense of girls who saw themselves as serious sportspeople, I\u2019m quite shocked; I don\u2019t recognise myself. If some of them just wanted to dance and look pretty\u2026 so what!? They\u2019re all wonderful! I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s age, motherhood or the creep of the Trigger Age but I would never say any of it today.<\/p>\n

In fact, I was moved to tears by the hopes and dreams of the girls in this show, and by the gallantry and sweetness of their world, and by their ill treatment at the hands of some bad men.<\/p>\n

Weirdly, though, I was simultaneously bored. So bored.<\/p>\n

How <\/em>many cheerleading series are there again? I won\u2019t even bother watching episode two of this one!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, Victoria has been watching America\u2019s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":99440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"\nBREAKING: Cheerleaders, like any athletes, often get attention for their athleticism, skill, and the hard work they put into their craft. For many, cheerleading involves rigorous training, precision, and teamwork \u2014 all of which require a lot of dedication and athleticism. 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