| Sick of the Stereotypes | |
| Looking at Cheerleading through the eyes of a male Cheerleader, written by Jake. |
Sick of the
Stereotypes
by Jake
I walk into school. I look around at the people moving through the halls, standing in the corners talking to friends about who knows what. I pass a group of people standing on the stairs and the day's jokes begin. "Hey cheerboy," or "What's up Jan-Jan! (I have adopted the nickname from Bring it On)," I hear them call as I turn my head and walk away. All day it continues, but you know what? It hasn't bothered me for while, I have accepted that I'm a male cheerleader and that I'm not going to stop cheering.
But now that cheerleading is over, it's starting to get to me again. I'm just sick of it, and I think that the other male cheerleaders would agree with me. For all the people out there that think Cheerleading is a girl's sport, whether it's high school cheerleading or college; it's not.
I ask you just once to go to an after-school practice or Football game, anything, and watch the male cheerleaders. We work as hard as any other sport at any school. I personally know this is true. From working out at the gym 3 days a week during the summer to building for the coming school year, to running the mile and working out at home during the school year to stay in shape, it's as hard as anything. I ask you to come to a practice. Do you think you can lift a girl 3 feet in the air above your head with nothing between her and the floor but you? You're expected to catch her and to save them from any injury.
I have had many injuries. Anything from a simple sprained ankle, to having one of my fellow cheerleaders fall from 10-11 feet in the air and land straight on my head, popping my neck in 4 places. It's not only the guys that suffer these injuries too. Last year, a girl on our Varsity squad was knocked unconscious when a basket-toss went bad.
Now, I ask you to go through what we go through for one day and then see what you think.
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