Exemplification Essay: How Cheerleading Is A Sport

When a person thinks of the word ‘sport’ their minds go to the big three: baseball, basketball, and football. Webster’s dictionary defines a sport as “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.” Most activities are either a sport or they are not. It’s simple, but there is one that tends to confuse people, cheerleading. People cannot agree on whether cheerleading takes on the task of being a sport. A reason some people may not know might be a result of them not understanding cheer.
Cheerleading is made up of five main components: stunting, tumbling, dancing, jumping, and cheering. The two main and most impressing aspects of the sport, tumbling and stunting, both require intense training both mentally and physically. Cheerleaders must mentally overcome the fear of possibly injuring themselves and they must build up physical strength, endurance, and coordination in able to increase the level of difficulty in their stunting and tumbling. Achieving the skills necessary to become a great cheerleader can take many years of learning new skills and routines. Although it is a difficult
It teaches the importance of certain life qualities and some lessons to take away. The cheerleaders compete at compititions against other teams. Knowing this information still makes people indecisive in their decision of if cheer qualifies as a sport. According to Eileen Lofrese (Macedo, 2010, para. 10-11), most people can’t decide whether cheer is a sport or not because of its inconsistency. Some schools may only have a cheer team that cheers at games, but other schools have a competitive varsity team. Coach Stevens (personal communication, January 20, 2016) says that she believes cheer is a sport that isn’t fully developed yet. She