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Truth behind cheerleading myths revealed by Head Coach Lisa Knipp

By Steven Chen
<stevenchen@hilite.org>

Myth: Only girls cheerlead.
LK: “Here in the state of Indiana, there are co-ed teams. If you look at collegiate cheerleading, I can’t think of one college cheerleading program that is only for females. So it most definitely is a co-ed sport. We have tried to open it up to different gentlemen in CHS who have chosen not to embrace the sport. It’s their decision, not mine. At this time, there are no gentlemen that are cheering for CHS. At one time back in the late 80’s, early 90’s there were stuntmen. Male cheerleaders were called stuntmen. And it was the president of the student body, it was the speaker of the house, it was football players. It was made up of high school boys who were in leadership roles.”

Myth: Cheerleaders don’t incur a lot of injuries.
LK: “We do incur injuries. We have everything: broken legs to stress fractures to concussions. We have (injuries) just like a football player would have. So that is definitely a fact. It is a very risky environment. We try to be as safe as we can.”
­
Myth: Cheerleading has no rules.
LK: “We are governed by federation rules, just like the sport of football has rules that they are governed by. Just like you can go to the state of California and play a football game, we can go to the state of Texas and cheer against other teams in competition because there are federation rules we have to abide by.”

Myth: Cheerleading is like being in a popularity contest.
LK: “We don’t have the student body or anyone in the school judge our tryouts. I bring in outside judges from across the Midwest to judge. So we do not have anyone in the building giving us advice as to who will make cheerleading, so it definitely is not a popularity contest.”

—

FAMOUS MALE CHEERLEADERS

Girls aren’t the only ones with school spirit

George W. Bush
Samuel L. Jackson
Steve Martin
Michael Douglas
Franklin D. Roosevelt

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