Front page story on MSNBC May 20th, 2010:
… Cheerleading — not basketball, not softball, not even field hockey or ice hockey — is by far the most dangerous sport for girls. Cheer accounts for 65 percent of all catastrophic injuries in girls’ high school athletics, shows a recent report by the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina.
That’s especially striking considering cheerleaders make up just about 12 percent of the 3 million female high school athletes in the U.S.
Devastating injuries soar
Frederick Mueller, director of the injury research center, has tracked down 73 cases of “catastrophic” injuries in U.S. cheerleaders over the past 26 years.
I’m one of the few Artistic gymnastics coaches trying to encourage and promote competitive cheer. But it’s not easy in the face of statistics like this.
Should competitive cheer be better regulated?
Difficulty further restricted?
Leave a comment if you’ve an opinion.
Thanks Quentin Finck for the link.
16 comments ↓
By far the biggest problem is the lack of good coaching.
Most of the “pure” cheer girls are trying to learn tumbling without a gymnastics background. They want to learn back handsprings and back tucks and cannot even hold a proper handstand or do a backward roll.
Not only do people actually try to teach them tumbling without the fundamentals but they don’t develop the awareness for the stunting either.
The other big problem is a lack of quality of coaching for stunting. There’s no money in coaching cheer except for a few select colleges… and definitely none in high school at all except for gyms who cater to such. But most of the people there are mainly gymnastics focused and don’t know how to teach acrobatic type stunting and/or hand balancing.
Big issues with quality control. That and they practice/perform on HARD WOOD floors.
I always wondered why the moves girls perform when being tossed or lifted in the air couldn’t be broken down into drills like gymnastics skills. I could think of a few ways to do that right now in my head with some simple gymnastics eq that could better prepare both the flyer and the girls that catch.
It’s a new “sport” (I hesitate to even call it that) and it’s going to be very rough as it goes through its baby stages until someone takes the bull by the horns and makes it mature.
Competitive cheer is on the short path to NCAA varsity status, I predict (if it hasn’t already been recognized as of the last few months) that it will gain such recognition by the OCR within the next few years.
Once it gets NCAA varsity status and the number of scholarships/competitors can be counted toward Title IX compliance, money will be thrown into the sport by every university. U. Oregon, U. Maryland, and Baylor (among a handful of others) have already decided, as a school, they’re just going to go ahead and treat competitive cheer as a varsity sport. Oregon calls it “team stunting and gymnastics” thinking that they’re gaming the system by calling it “gymnastics” even though it’s not gymnastics. If money is in it, then at the very least some better facilities and equipment should come with that, which will help, and eventually probably some better coaching (probably some assistant college gymnastics coach looking to break into a head coaching role).
Furthermore, one of the stipulations for recognition is that the activity be regulated, so they’ll have to address that (and indeed they have. Baylor, Oregon, Maryland, and about 3 other schools have already sat down and organized all the rules and policies they’d like to see put in place as part of their proposal to the NCAA requesting “emerging sport status”). Presumably that regulation could help reduce the injuries.
Competitive cheer is coming like a freight train. It has the potential to be the women’s elephant sport comparable to football on the men’s side. It can field large numbers and has a rabid fan base that doesn’t even need to understand the sport to appreciate it, and as opposed to gymnastics, competitive cheer needs far less equipment even to be “state of the art.” (Seriously. A tumbltrak, a resi, a couple 8 inchers, and a foam floor, and you’ve got a high class cheer gym. Throw in a panel mat or two and you’re above the curve.) Make no mistake, competitive cheerleading is coming for your daughters. No amount of injuries is going to hold it back.
I have mixed feelings about the effect it will have on gymnastics at the college and JO levels.
Cheerleading does need to be further regulated; however, these regulations need to come NOT in the form of difficulty restrictions, but in the form of coach certification.
In football, basketball, baseball, etc, some random parent who doesn’t have a clue what they’re doing can come in and coach and the worst that will happen is the team won’t win. This is not the case with cheer.
Coaches need to be trained and certified in order for this sport to become safe.
(of course, even better would be if the sport would just die off and girls would do tramp and tumbling or acrobatic gymnastics instead)
Biggest problem, like TP said, is the lack of proper basics. Most of these coaches (who have little training, just their own experience) want to fast track all the stunts and tumbling. I have worked at camps where the coaches asked to skip over the basics for stunting to “get right to the good stuff.” Many coaches can’t understand why an athlete can’t learn a backhandspring in 6 months going to the gym twice a week. It’s a crime because then the girls do not develop the strength or body awareness. There are some great clubs around who believe in basics and it shows.
Difficulty is currently being restricted at lower levels, which will hopefully encourage a change…
I don’t think restricting difficulty will do it — unless they’re going to ban backhandsprings at cheer competitions.
What cheer needs is training and certification for coaches. It needs the sort of knowledge base that exists for gymnastics and tramp/tumbling.
I was a gymnast and when I watched the cheerleaders, I would cringe a lot of the time because many of them weren’t ready to try the skills they were doing. They lacked basic technique, strength, and flexibility. It seemed dangerous to me. Many of those girls should not have been attempting even backhandsprings. They looked like they were going to stop right in the middle and crash on their heads and they sometimes did.
I agree with Stacey. I see them in my gym daily and cringe. A little bit of physical preparation would go a long way. We would never teach gymnasts to do these skills in the physical condition that most of these girls are in.
So true Dana. If you don’t have the physical strength to even do a handstand you should have no business doing a handspring. Same goes for flexibility. Basic conditioning should be a prerequisite followed by some qualified instruction.
Unfortunately we see too many of these kids trying to spot each other without having the faintest idea about the proper technique or biomechanics of the skill. And also unfortunately most qualified coaches are choosing not to get involved during drop-in classes because of possible sexual harassment scenarios or other legal issues. Double jeopardy for the cheerleader.
Nowadays, when being asked to spot in a drop-in class my response to the cheerleader is to enroll in a real gym class with a real certified gymnastics instructor for as long as you need to to learn the skill properly.
I don’t think that increasing difficulty restrictions is the solution, there’s already a whole pile of different categories and difficulty restrictions in place. At the top end, I think the sport would benefit from removing the difficulty limits as many of the top teams are limited by them. (this would be university level and Sr. Open only)
On to the problem of injuries, I agree that a lack of good coaching is a big part of the problem. There aren’t enough coaches with a long term view of their athletes, they want to push the difficulty THIS year. This means that there isn’t the focus there needs to be on developing strong fundamentals.
Contributing to this problem is the judging. A team that puts a couple girls on the floor doing back headsprings deserves to get nailed on the execution. So much so that the coach realizes that putting garbage on the floor just isn’t going to work. Coaches need to know that the scoring is going to be execution first and difficulty second so that anything that’s questionable stays off the floor.
I think all gymnastics people are worried about cheerleading because most cheer coaches have no idea how to teach tumbling. Then we get put in the position of trying to teach their athletes good basic when they just want to learn tricks or they won’t have a spot on the team. Plus, I have found it very interesting that in my area most of the coaches will admit that they don’t know how to teach or spot the skills they want the girls to be able to do.
You’re welcome for the link, Rick. I know you are interested in the competitive cheer scene.
Geoffrey – While not nearly as dangerous as having a no nothing coach for competitive cheer, football being taught by someone who doesn’t know anything about the risks is fairly high on my bad things meter. A football coach needs to be able to teach the way to properly tackle to avoid hurting ones self, not leading with your head for example, and to avoid hurting the other player, avoid knee hits. Either type of bad tackle can result in an injury that can range from paralysis to ACL injuries.
I don’t think the average parent knows enough about the risks involved with modern cheerleading. I’m knowledgeable about gymnastics from fan’s point of view but I don’t have a clue about what is really safe versus what just looks safe. Until some organizing body steps up and sets a real standard for safety, training requirements and coaching requirements it’s going to be a rough haul for this emerging sport.
there also a problem at the camp level of cheer. I’ve never been to a strictly cheer camp(the kind with the spirit sticky thing). but i’ve coached at gymnastics camps with a cheer section and most of the time its one group with about 8-10 girl’s with skills ranging from a forward roll to dobble twists meaning the inexperenced girl usaulley gets the shaft as far as coaching goes.
The cheer coach, who is always trying to book time for his group at our gym, actually bragged to me about how he could teach a kid a back tuck in half the time it would take a gym coach. He didn’t get hung up on all the drills we “wasted” time on. He was quite proud of the fact.
He actually wants to come in this summer so that he can use our rod floor and pit to teach the same girls, fulls. He resents the fact that I require him to have one of our coaches in the gym while he rents the space… Hmm sounds fishy to me. Of course the coach who has to be there is just as annoyed because he’s afraid of what crazy coaching style he’ll have to try and keep safe!
I have to strongly disagree with this article. Unfortunately she has gotten some wrong information…
Therefore, here are some of the points that didn’t make it into the article.
The role of cheerleading:
The first is the issue of the role of cheerleaders and stunting. Most school cheer coaches recognize that their primary role is to lead the crowd at athletic contests. They can better fulfill this by doing basic “game stunts” like the thigh stands, elevators, extensions and yes – even some basket tosses. The game is going on behind the cheerleaders and the crowd is seated in high-rise bleachers. Stunts get the attention of the crowd, so that you can draw their focus to the cheer team in order to better lead them. Signs are more effective when they can be seen and partner stunts can accomplish this. In addition, the skills the cheerleaders do can build a rapport with the crowd and help them be a conduit between the crowd in the stands and the athletes on the field. As we teach, it is important to recognize that there are times for “game stunts” and that the more intricate type of skills that help attract great athletes are better reserved for entertainment-style routines at halftime or for competition.
Risk Assessment:
While there are difficulties in doing some risk assessments due to participation figures, there are in fact places where we can do risk assessments, particularly in high school cheerleading. The data from the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injuries Annual Report shows that in 2007-2008 there were 3 high school catastrophic injuries and approximately 400,000 cheerleaders. That puts the risk of catastrophic injury per 100,000 participants at .75 but as the article does mention, that doesn’t account for the fact that cheerleaders participate all year. That means that the number of injuries for cheerleading took multiple seasons to accrue and to “normalize” the data to compare it to other sports you would have to half the risk level. That puts cheerleading at around .375 catastrophic injuries per 100,000. In simplest terms comparing it to other high school sports, that means there are 10 sports that have a higher risk of catastrophic injury than cheerleading – including 3 girls sports – ice hockey, gymnastics and soccer.
And this bears out our own experience. While articles are quick to point out common sports injuries like ankle sprains or the occasional knee brace, they have a hard time finding a program where they can point to a pattern of more serious injuries than other sports such as soccer, baseball, track, etc.
Decrease in Injuries:
Perhaps the most unfortunate part of the entire article however is that it ended with the idea that recent improvements in cheer injury statistics are due to coaches somehow “hiding” injuries. This improvement can more likely be attributed to a concrete set of circumstances than to an unsubstantiated comment.
In 2006, the NCAA working with AACCA required that all of their college cheer programs would have to be supervised by a safety certified coach in order to retain their catastrophic insurance coverage. In addition, the AACCA required that our safety rules had to be followed by these programs or their certification could be revoked. It is important to note that prior to this requirement, cheerleading made up 25% of their catastrophic claims. Since this requirement, there have been no cheerleading catastrophic injury claims with the NCAA.
Since 2004, 12 state high school associations have required their cheerleading coaches to complete the AACCA Safety Course.
In 2006, the AACCA removed basket tosses from the basketball court surface for colleges and high schools and further restricted colleges from performing 2 1/2 high pyramids on the basketball court. Further rules restrictions regarding surfaces have been implemented by both the AACCA and the National Federation of High Schools since then.
In 2004, the United States All Star Federation (USASF) was formed to provide a framework to support non-school cheerleading known as “All-Star”. They have a skill-based leveling system for rules and a credentialing program for coaches and gyms.
These efforts on the part of the NCAA, the National Federation of High Schools, the US All Star Federation and the AACCA are much more likely the reason for increased safety than the idea that cheer coaches have started hiding injuries, and it is unfair to all of the great coaches that work tirelessly to provide a safe environment for their teams.
We do commend the Journal for pointing out that the risk of cheerleading is actually closer to that of soccer than of football which has the vast majority of high school and college catastrophic injuries. However, when the true successes that have been achieved aren’t reported, it is hard to continue those successes and help them spread to other states and organizations.
Why this information was left off I can only speculate. My conversations with the reporter where very good and her questions showed a genuine interest in digging down to the real facts. There were quite a few cheer issues addressed in a short space and the article included some cheerleading history as well. Perhaps there just wasn’t room to get it all in, and unfortunately this was the part that was not included. There are many factors that go into what makes it into an article.
Regardless of the reasons, these are important safety improvements and we hope the record can be corrected.
Hey Shane,
I’d love to post your response as it’s own post. Most people don’t read the comments.
Let me know if that’s OK. Or you could email it to me:
RickMcCharles@gmail.com
Leave a Comment