Of the United States’ 2.9 million female high school athletes, only 3% are cheerleaders, yet cheerleading accounts for 65% of all catastrophic injuries in girls’ high school athletics.
Since the NCAA has yet to recognize cheerleading as an official college sport, there are no solid numbers on college cheerleading, yet when it comes to injuries, 67% of female athlete injuries at the college level are due to cheerleading mishaps.
LiveScience.com recaps new evidence showing that the most dangerous sport for high school and college females is cheerleading: Another study found that between 1982 and 2007, there were 103 fatal, disabling or serious injuries recorded among female high school athletes, with the vast majority (67) occurring in cheerleading. …
… In October 2009, the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Advisors (AACCA), a subsidiary of Varsity Brands, released a study that analyzed the data from Emergency Room visits of all high school athletes. The study asserted that contrary to many perceptions, cheerleading injuries are in line with other female sports. …
Varsity Brands, however, is the conglomerate that profits most from Cheer in the USA.
… Involvement in cheerleading activities includes its ownership of subsidiaries and programs that conduct competitions and camps. Notably, the breadth of influence Varsity Brands Inc. possesses over cheerleading activities has led to discussion of potential conflicts of interest including its interests related to the issue of the classification of competitive cheerleading as a sport in the United States. …
A better source is CATASTROPHIC SPORTS INJURY RESEARCH 29th ANNUAL REPORT – FALL 1982 – SPRING 2011 (PDF)
In that document, Cheerleading was by far the most dangerous High School sport for girls. (83 catastrophic injuries compared with 9 for both Gymnastics and Track.)
how dangerous is Cheer?
VERY dangerous. 😦
related – Penn and Teller (VIDEO) found 66 different Cheer “National Championships”, many of them owned or regulated by Varsity Brands.
(via Beautiful Gymnastics)
Gymnastics Coaching.com 