The background of TU Cheer



Day Before Game Day!

Trinity University has many sports on campus. Of course there are the obvious ones such as football, baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball, and soccer which usually draw a crowd. And then there are the sports that don’t draw nearly as big of a crowd, but are just as important such as golf, tennis, cross country, swimming and diving, and track and field. Yet, there is a team that Trinity students forget about when listing the sports on campus and that team is made up of the cheerleaders.

Most individuals, not only at Trinity but throughout the world, disagree with the fact that cheerleading is a sport. They claim that cheerleader’s soul purpose for existing is to entertain the fans of other sports. These individuals do not realize that cheerleading IS considered a sport. A sport can be defined in many ways, although the basic principle included in the definition of a sport (which many people do agree on) is the concept that a sport is a competitive, physical activity. With this common concept, cheerleading would then be considered a sport.

The cheerleaders at Trinity University are a dynamic group of girls that bring love, commitment, understanding, cooperation, and perseverance to practices and games. Don’t be fooled by the tiny skirts, bows, smiles, and make-up, the cheerleaders practice like every other team on campus. We do entertain the crowd, lead chants and cheers, and raise the spirits of students, parents and fans at every home football and basketball game, but we do much more beyond that. We train for our sport. We practice many hours throughout the week, stunting, tumbling, jumping, and conditioning. To the fans and students the stunts and tricks we pull at the games may look effortless, but it is only because we put the time and work into getting it perfect at practice. Every other week I will give a quick breakdown of how cheerleaders pull off their effortless moves at the games, so maybe people could actually understand the difficulty of what we do, and maybe think twice before stating that cheerleading is NOT a sport. After all, ESPN (the official sport channel) airs cheerleading competitions. If cheer was not a sport, why would they air such a spectacle?

Trinity Cheer by Veronica Oviedo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.