Cheerleader Limits

[BenEClone]

Nebraska announced it is grounding its cheerleaders - if I understand the release correctly - no flips, tumbling, towers or tossing. Some Nebraska highschools have had similar limits for years. Is the performance worth the risk of serious injury or death? Any other schools imposed limits yet? Is this the beginning of a trend?

[mred]

Originally posted by BenEClone:
Is the performance worth the risk of serious injury or death?

The same could be asked of football or any other dangerous sport. Most cheerleaders consider what they do to be a sport. They have cheerleading competitions and can win awards just like any other sport. I can see where this is coming from, though. Iowa high schools haven't had pole vaulting for quite a while (and the incident at the Big 10 Track-and-field championships shows why).

[swok34]

hmmmmmm, the best of the best that I saw in Kansas City were the Kansas State cheerleaders........

[ISUbballfan]

One thing that I like about Iowa State hosting NCAA tournament is getting to see other schools cheerleaders.

Last year we really enjoyed the Howard cheerleaders. They had you thing of the cheerleaders in Wildcats. I don't remember them doing towers and jumps but they were good.

This year I like the BYU cheerleaders. They have a couple really small girls and the guys toss them really high and the moves that they can do in the air are good. Florida didn't have any male cheerleaders and watching the girls lifting the other girls made me very nervous.

[KSUron]

Thanks swok, we like the KSU squad very much. One of the things I like best is that they are ALWAYS there in Bramlage and always put on a good show for the fans, even last year in poorly attended non-conference games. I truly belive they are part of the reason for our fan support which was not all that bad even before we went on this winning jag. KSU has been in the top 30 on attendance for several years and you sure can't say it was all about winning.

I think we got to see several good squads this year including Arkansas. I was impressed with their team, coach and fans also. Its good to see solid supporters out there. Btw, one of their girls was in the air on a high basket toss and just landing when the place went dark. Scary

Our daughter was a cheerleader in Jr. High, 4 years of High School and four years of college. I know way more about that sport than I ever wanted to know, and yes serious cheerleaders do consider it a sport. Our daughter's high school team worked out at LEAST two hours a day five days a week and were expected to lift weights, run etc. in addition and during the summer. One of the girls had a brother on the football team who said they did not have to practice as hard as the cheer squad. If you don't lift wieghts and practice hard you are at serious risk for injury. The sport is pretty safe if it is done right.

Our daughter was less than 120 pounds and could arm wrestle boys much bigger. Those kids have to be TUFF! The guys who based for her or threw her up for basket tosses would just about rather die than let her drop or have a hard landing. It is a team sport. Sue is mighty bummed that Nebraska has "grounded" their squad.

[hornsofthedilemma]

We are very proud of out cheerleaders at UT.

I'm personally very glad that the cheer squad is as representative of ethnic diversity as they other athletic teams, more diverse than the enrollment of the Univeristy at large.

And with all that hard work and great entertainment, know what the cheerleaders at UT get? Three hours of practice at least three times a week (not including games) and they get a whopping $250 in books each semester and their expenses when they travel with the team. Dedication? You bet.

[YCN]

The campus newspaper for CU, The Colorado Daily, has had some articles recently on a new policy change regarding cheerleaders at CU.

First, the regents decided to impose a weight limit on the squad, decreeing that no cheerleader would be allowed to be on the top varsity squad if she weighed over 120 pounds.

Now as you can imagine, this didn't exactly go over well with PC Boulder, so they backtracked and amended the policy to say that cheerleaders who are tossed in the air can't weigh more than 120 pounds. (Liability issues?)

Well that didn't go over either, so now they've announced that NO cheerleader, men's or women's, weighing over 120 pounds would be allowed to be tossed in the air!

Now all this rule-making has left me a little dizzy, but I do know one thing - I haven't seen a whole lot of male cheerleader-tossing in Boulder.

Personally, I'm having fun with this one! Only in Boulder, as the saying goes.

[KSUron]

Hey that's right YCN. I sort of forgot how PC Boulder is. Too funny! Maybe CU could work that into a defensive strategy for Stanford. "Everybody hug a tree".

Strange PC outfit Stanford. They want you to use the sigular form of the off the wall name for their team color. Then they use a GREEN tree as their symbol. Shouldn't that be a red tree? Oh well, its their school and even I think a school ought to be able to call itself whatever it wants and the rest of us ought to humor them.

When our daughter was in high school the local team was called the "Savages". The name has since been changed and I think the change was overdue. It was not the worst team name I have seen though. IMHO that honor goes to a high school we played every year. The town has two industries. Logging and the state mental hospital. The team name? "Maniacs" I kid you not! Some of this PC stuff was needed. Just not the silly extent to which it gets carried. I was a little less offended by the Stanford "Indians" but the PC activists didn't like it. Maybe they were right.

Hug a tree, or what the heck, head butt the thing Buffs. (or is that "Buff") Oh forget it. Just win. Go Big 12!

[Jennifer]

I have a friend who cheered for the Univ. of Cincinnati. She is small (5'1, 105 lbs) and was dropped in a practice and hurt her back/neck. Now, at the ripe old age of 27, she regularly has back/neck pain, takes vioxx often, and sees a Dr. to fairly often to get the kinks worked out.

On another note, I see nothing wrong w/ the Indian related mascots, but I guess I'm just not PC enough (and my grandfather is 1/4 Choctaw Indian). I don't think mascots are intended to be derogatory in any way.

As for interesting mascot names, I graduated from Chickasha High School--Home of the Fightin' Chicks! I actually like it because it's unique. And it was truly a Fightin' Chick--fighing pose, boxing gloves on. Wish I could find a picture...

[YCN]

I have heard many people refer to Chickasha as "CHICK-uh-SHAW".

I never have corrected any of them, because I want to be able to identify those persons posing as Sooners.

(p.s. My spelling reeks tonight.)



[This message has been edited by YCN (edited 03-20-2002).]

[horntooter]

This started out as a post about cheerleaders and diverted somewhere along the line to mascot names. Here is an article that appeared in the Austin paper:

Headline: Team's nickname brings race debate to university
Intramural players, tired of 'red' references, choose a unique mascot: the Fightin' Whites.

GREELEY, Colo. -- It began as a tongue-in-cheek response to a serious issue.

An intramural basketball team organized by American Indian students at the University of Northern Colorado adopted a team nickname, their satiric take on a nearby high school's venerable mascot: The Eaton High Fightin' Reds.

Thus were the Fightin' Whites born.

Far removed from the usual fierceness of mascots, the Fightin' Whites' mascot is depicted as a '50s-style pale man with earnest face, dimples and gleaming, tidy hair. His smiling visage beams on the front of the team T-shirts. Emblazoned beneath his conservative tie is the slogan, "Every thang's going to be all white."

The team is attempting to accomplish with humor what others have failed to do with countless town meetings across the country: to get the community to discuss, in a civil manner, the volatile issue of culturally insensitive team mascots.

That hasn't happened. Instead, a rural town and its high school feel unfairly targeted. A tradition is under threat. And a bunch of tightly budgeted college students are sitting on a gold mine in T-shirt sales.

"We never expected this to get this big," said Solomon Little Owl, a forward on the basketball team and director of Native American Student Services at the university. "We wanted, humorously, to make a point. `Look at this from my point of view. See how it feels to be made fun of.' If people change their minds, fine. Really, we just needed uniforms, and this seemed pretty good."

If you want the read the rest, here's the link: http://www.austin360.com/auto_docs/epaper/editions/saturday/news_35.html

[KSUron]

Originally posted by Jennifer:
I don't think mascots are intended to be derogatory in any way.

As for interesting mascot names, I graduated from Chickasha High School--Home of the Fightin' Chicks! I actually like it because it's unique. And it was truly a Fightin' Chick--fighing pose, boxing gloves on. Wish I could find a picture...

Jen, I don't think any mascots I have seen were intended to be derogatory and I fought that battle for a while, but I have seen that somtimes mascots are used by people in ways that were not intended and were therefore demeaning in some respects in spite of the original intent. That is somewhat what happened to the "Savages" which was intended as "Noble Savages" but was abused by some people to mean low class and uneducated. The school just gave up the fight. I think in general though, that we are too easily offended when no offense was meant.

I love that mascot "Fightin' Chicks". It would work well with another one of my silly peaves which is "Lady" tacked on to school mascots for the women's teams. We just played the "LadyBacks" of Arkansas. Whats wrong with just being a Razorback, man or women? But I digress, were your boys teams the "Gentlemen Fightin' Chicks"?

My school was just the boring "Eagles".

[This message has been edited by KSUron (edited 03-20-2002).]

[KSUron]

Another random silly note on mascot names. Amy Dutmer from KSU is a from York Nebraska. York High has a proud tradition in girls basketball. If I recall correctly they won the state class "B" (second largest) tourney 5 of the first 8 years it was held. They had some great players. One of them was a 6'2 player that played a great deal like Kendra Wecker. She played for the University of Wyoming and many years after she graduated she was still their all time leading rebounder. She was also a good artist. With a town name like York not surprisinly the teams were the "Dukes". For some reason some people did not think girls should be "Dukes". There was an effort to call them "Duchesses". The girls did not like it and thought it made them sound fat and dowdy. The artist created a "Duck" logo responding to another town's attemp to put down the York Dukes by calling them the York Ducks. The York girls basketball team ran with the idea and the girls teams became the "Ducks" complete with a "Quacker Backer" logo for their supporters. The kids were very agressive and ahead of their time. They dominated everyone in the region. I don't know if they still use the "Ducks" or "Quacker Backer". I hope they do. They were Fightin' Chicks too, and they made my wife and I WBB fans.


[This message has been edited by KSUron (edited 03-20-2002).]

[YCN]

My school was guilty of the most heinous of social indiscretions, as our team was the Spartans. For those who are familiar with the Spartans, they excluded both women and minorities in their membership.

With this edit of my post, I've decided to include a fascinating link from none other than Boise State University, hosts of the West Region, regarding the Greek and Persian wars, circa BC.
http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/persian/index.html


[This message has been edited by YCN (edited 03-21-2002).]

[AirLonghorn]

I bet it would be hard to find a 120lb. buffalo. Actually, I like watching the acrobatic skills of the cheerleaders. It's the "strip-dancers" that get on my nerves!
Originally posted by YCN:
The campus newspaper for CU, The Colorado Daily, has had some articles recently on a new policy change regarding cheerleaders at CU.

First, the regents decided to impose a weight limit on the squad, decreeing that no cheerleader would be allowed to be on the top varsity squad if she weighed over 120 pounds.

Now as you can imagine, this didn't exactly go over well with PC Boulder, so they backtracked and amended the policy to say that cheerleaders who are tossed in the air can't weigh more than 120 pounds. (Liability issues?)

Well that didn't go over either, so now they've announced that NO cheerleader, men's or women's, weighing over 120 pounds would be allowed to be tossed in the air!

Now all this rule-making has left me a little dizzy, but I do know one thing - I haven't seen a whole lot of male cheerleader-tossing in Boulder.

Personally, I'm having fun with this one! Only in Boulder, as the saying goes.

[AirLonghorn]

At the sub-regional in Austin, I couldn't help but notice the cheerleaders for Louisiana Tech...10 of them.....all white....all blondes. Didn't that end in the 60's?

[Zo31]

I go back far enough that I remember when the Baylor Bearettes played ball instead of the Lady Bears. Much better.

[Cycurl714]

I am proud to be an Indianola Indian. A few years ago the school school board tried to change the mascot to the Grape Apes(I am so happy the change didn't happen) Instead all that was done was to make sure that no repesentations of the mascot were war-like(i.e. on appearal) There was little opposition to the Indian mascot. There was a change to the mascot of Simpson college, which is in Indianola, from the Redmen to the Storm.

[carolann]

Florida didn't have any male cheerleaders and watching the girls lifting the other girls made me very nervous.

Girls start cheerleading very young and learn to do things such as basket tosses with each other long before they go to college and have boys to throw them.

In Austin, I noticed that the girl Santa Barbara cheerleaders were heavier than I'm used to seeing and the boys were not that large. The girls had very developed arms and shoulders as if they did a lot of weight work. During the game,the Texas and Santa Barbara cheerleaders came out to do a trick together. The Santa Barbara cheerleaders 'trick' was to have the boys stand on the girls shoulders.