Is cheer dangerous too?

Hailey doing an extension with bases and backstop holding her up, in the air.

Hailey doing an extension with bases and backstop holding her up, in the air.

Makenna Zimmer, Copy Editor

Some may argue that cheer is not dangerous let alone not a sport. However there have been many injuries on the cheer team recently. It ranges from concussions to broken bones and more. Concussions can be a very dangerous thing to get and when having too many they can cause many long-term problems. All these problems however lead to the athlete not being able to take part in the sport.

Ella Huston grade 9 was doing a stunt and the flyers leg hit her in the head. “I don’t really remember how I felt when it first happened, I remember being really dizzy.” Ella stated. The flyer, Hailey Mejia grade 9 “when it happened, I didn’t notice or feel anything, until she was upset and said her head hurt.” (Hailey). Ella then had to go to the athletic trainer to get her head checked out. The athletic trainer told her to come back the next day. When she went back, she did in fact have a concussion. This results in her not being able to participate, which not only affects her but the rest of her stunt group because they can’t stunt without her. Cheer is very much a team sport, and just without one person everything can change.

After getting a concussion there are a lot of physical tolls it can have on one’s body. Headaches are the most common, if a headache hurts bad enough it can lead to the person not being able to do their day-to-day tasks because of the pain. Other symptoms of a concussion include, dizziness, feeling sick, lights being too bright, and even loss of memory. All these symptoms are very bad for one’s health and are symptoms they need to take very seriously to get back to normal.

There are also other physical dangers that come with doing cheer as well. An example is another person on the team broke their arm while they were tumbling working on skills for cheer. This had many long-term effects and resulted in loss of time participating in cheer. There has also been sprains in people’s wrists and with a sprained wrist they can’t do anything during cheer which also impacts the team.

The athletes on the cheer team put in the hard work and time to make sure that they’re at their best, not only for them but for their team. There are also many dangers when it comes to one’s physical health in participating on the cheer team, however there is always that risk with any given sport. Considering all this some would say that cheer is as much of a dangerous sport as the other sports here at rocky.