At Honesdale High School: Cheerleaders Are Athletes, Too!

For many years, cheerleading has been treated unfairly.

The girls practice, they stretch and they compete just like all other sports teams. So why do some people not consider this a sport?

Cheering here at Honesdale High School is not competition level cheerleading, but it is still a sport and deserves credit.

“People make fun of cheerleaders, but it is  lot harder than it looks.” said basketball cheerleading coach Rebecca Rowe.

Coach Rowe has spent 21-years here at Honesdale as the basketball cheerleading coach and one year doing football for Paupack. The Honesdale grad cheered all four years in high school for soccer and basketball.

Rebecca certainly knows about cheerleading and was able to give me a more clear explanation of the differences in football cheerleading compared to that of basketball.

“Football cheering is more about entertaining the crowd, because they can’t see the game. Where as in basketball you’re practically in the game,” said Rowe.

Similarities
With basketball and wrestling cheers, dancing is a big part of the sport.

The girls are usually in charge with putting together their own dances. Sometimes they use professional routines, but for the most part the girls make their own dances.

The basketball captains: Courtney White, Jess Theobald and Katie Stinnard are all a big part of creating the cheers and running the practice.

For wrestling the captains are: Amber Korkes and Liz Heesh. These girls are in charge of calling out the cheers and leading the team at the edge of the mat.

In basketball and wrestling girls are right on the sideline and practically in the game. Both groups have to be very spontaneous and fast on their feet to keep with the pace of the game.

Both coaches gave their captains plenty of credit with helping out and running practices.

Practice Differences 
Wrestling and football cheerleading coach Julie Becker said football has a lot more time to prepare and more room.

Football girls have the nice warm summer weather which gives them a lot more room to practice stunting and do more excercising.

Coach Julie Becker was a Honesdale graduate of ‘95. While in high school she cheered for basketball and football. She has been the wrestling cheerleading coach for 11-seasons and football for 10.

With football cheerleading the girls are also required to attend camp in the summer. Where as in basketball and wrestling there isn’t any camps and with the cold weather the girls are held to in door facilities like the cafeteria and the high school hall ways.

This puts plenty of limitations on their stunting.

Stunting
Rebecca Rowe was very helpful with explaining what stunting has done with cheerleading. When she was a cheerleader there was no such thing as stunting.

All of the throws, basket catches and flips didn’t become a part of cheerleading until the late 1990’s and has become a huge part of cheerleading over the past 15-years.

“Stunting has taken away from cheering itself and put more emphasis on entertainment,” said Rowe. As much as stunting has made cheering more about entertainment, it has also made it more of a sport."

Doing the stunts the girls do is one of the most athletic things about the sport. If anyone messes up in a stunt girls get hurt. If one girl gets hurt the team has to rotate all of the girls around to make the routines work.

During the pre-stunt era there was no worring about injuries, now with girls flying in the air and  girls stepping all over each other the injury rate has risen. The PIAA even has rules and regulations on what stunts girls can and can’t do.

What goes into a stunt? Well first off, you have your three different groups: flyers, bases and backs.

The flyers are the girls in the air and on top of the formations. “Body control is very important to be a flyer,” said Rowe.

Flyers are usually the smallest girls on the team, but that isn’t always the case. Some of the smallest girls on teams can’t be flyers if they don’t have good body control.

Bases and backs or fronts are the foundation. The bases are off to the side usually doing the brunt of the work when lifting the flyers, while backs or fronts are their to cushion the landing for flyers.

Overall
“Cheerleaders aren’t just pretty faces. They can do a lot. We get the crowds going, we stunt and rain or shine win or lose at the end of the day we are here to support the team,” said coach Becker.

The fact is cheerleading is a sport and anyone who thinks other wise should look at what they do.

It takes time and effort to put together a dance or stunt correctly and just like in other sports if you don’t do it right it’s very easy to get hurt.  The girls put in just as much time as other athletes do.