Equal Cheers for Boys and Girls Draw Some Boos

[AngryAmish]

WHITNEY POINT, N.Y. — "Thirty girls signed up for the cheerleading squad this winter at Whitney Point High School in upstate New York. But upon learning they would be waving their pompoms for the girls’ basketball team as well as the boys’, more than half of the aspiring cheerleaders dropped out.

The eight remaining cheerleaders now awkwardly adjust their routines for whichever team is playing here on the home court — “Hands Up You Guys” becomes “Hands Up You Girls”— to comply with a new ruling from federal education officials interpreting Title IX, the law intended to guarantee gender equality in student sports.

“It feels funny when we do it,” said Amanda Cummings, 15, the cheerleading co-captain, who forgot the name of a female basketball player mid-cheer last month.

Whitney Point is one of 14 high schools in the Binghamton area that began sending cheerleaders to girls’ games in late November, after the mother of a female basketball player in Johnson City, N.Y., filed a discrimination complaint with the United States Department of Education. She said the lack of official sideline support made the girls seem like second-string, and violated Title IX’s promise of equal playing fields for both sexes."

[MethuenProgressive]

1. Girls High School sports needs more than just cheerleaders...

..they need female ADs. Maybe then things will change.

[AngryAmish]

2. How so?

[jmowreader]

3. My school never ran into such a problem

We didn't have "winter cheerleaders" and "fall cheerleaders." We just had cheerleaders--twenty-four of them divided into a varsity squad and a JV squad.

During football season, the whol esquad worked football games--except homecoming, when both squads worked the field. Girls played volleyball, and they had cheerleaders too--the four girls who played basketball but not volleyball.

Once Wallace beat us in the final game of the football season, the cheer squads split in half. Six girls cheered boy's basketball, six cheered girl's.

I don't know if this would wor k today. Cheerleading then is way different from cheerleading today--today's cheer is much more athletic, among other things.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Interestng comment on just what "cheerleading" is really about..

[Quantess]

13. Yeah. A lot of social expectations... and... flirting?

It "feels funny" to cheer for other girls? :o
As though, cheering for girls' sports is kinda gay in the cheerleaders' minds? :shrug:
Hmmm.

[TexasProgresive]

5. I stunned a young female athlete friend of mine

She plays basketball, runs track, and volleyball as well as being a cheerleader. I asked her if boys in tight shorts lead cheers at the girls' events. Her mouth dropped open and then she smiled and said, "No." but thought that it should be that way. LOL

[elehhhhna]

6. Our middle school cheerleaders work the girls Basketball games

although it's sorta almost sad because the B-ballers are SO much more exciting to watch than the cheerleaders. My 10 y/o daughter, in the stands w/ me, watching her sister's team WHUP the competition, pointed first to the cheerleaders, then to the b-ballers and observed "Who would want to do THAT when they could be doing THAT?"

[TahitiNut]

7. "Thirty girls signed up for the cheerleading squad ..."? No boys, huh?

Houston, we've got a problem. :shrug:

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. Girls basketball is very big here

In some schools, it draws more fans than the boys games.

[SmokingJacket]

10. Not so big here in upstate NY.

The major school sports are football and ice hockey, anyway, and if there are any such girls' teams, I've never heard of them.

I say, bring back the co-ed Pep Squad!

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. They are trying to get a pro hockey team here

but there really isn't a lot of interest here in the middle of the country.

[msongs]

9. george w bush was a cheeerleader. it is an activity whose time has come and gone

completely sexist in origin, continues to be that way.

cheerleaders are a useless vestige of a by gone era.

sucks up tons of cash that would be better spent in other ways.

just another t & a activity designed by and for men and boys to keep the girls down on the farm.

sort of a farm team of concubines for the jocks who really run the school.

after all aren't boys' sports the main reasons some schools exist?

Msongs
www.msongs.com
batik & digital art

[aikoaiko]

12. Meh, they'll get over it.

Adjustments can be rough and while equal cheerleading is not really what Title IX was for, I can understand the courts ruling.

I think back in the 1980s my school had cheering for boys and girls teams.

Cheering is really more like applied gymnastics these days, but it will never really completely lose the "adoration" element.