BEING a part of any sports team is always fun and interesting. When you are involved in sports or clubs, it allows you to have a better high school experience. The reason for that is because you are more involved, which allows you to meet new people. Another reason is that if you are struggling with becoming more outgoing you have a better chance of breaking out of your shell.

I have been cheering since I was seven years old, and I have always enjoyed it. Although I had been in all-star for a while, transitioning into high school was a completely new and different experience. For me of course, I argue cheer is a sport because we can work just as hard as any sport.

We can get injuries like any other sports team. All of the injuries that I have had in my life were because of cheer. I have broken my left arm, sprained my right arm, broken my finger, and the worst injury was getting a concussion. After I got my concussion I felt like I had completely different thoughts toward things, and I was not the same person as before the concussion.

Now moving on to stereotypes, high school cheer is nothing like the movies. First off not all cheerleaders are blonde and perky. We all have different personalities that make us way different from each other, but I think that it is a good thing: to have a group of people that are all diverse.

Another stereotype is that all cheerleaders are snobs. This is completely false. You cannot automatically assume that cheerleaders are rude, especially if you do not know them personally. We are all humans that have emotions and feelings. Obviously we are not happy all the time, just like anybody else.

One big stereotype as well is that cheerleaders are not smart, which is not the case at all. In order to stay on the team, we have to keep our grades up which makes us all try harder in classes and influences us to do better. These are just a few of the stereotypes that cheerleaders deal with, especially high school cheerleaders.

Overall, we work just as hard as any other student who wants to try for good grades especially for sports. Injuries do happen in cheer even though you might think, ‘The worst thing they can do is break a nail.’ That is obviously not always the case. High school cheer is nothing like movies and you should never expect it to be.

Cheer has always been torn between “cheer is a sport” and “cheer is not a sport”. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and are allowed to think however they want. High school cheer is not like the movies and you should never expect it to be. You probably won’t see any characteristics like this in any cheerleaders anyway.

Never judge a person before you get to know them, cheerleaders work just as hard as any other athlete. Allowing people to judge you with these stereotypes should never be an answer. To all the cheerleaders: defend yourself and do not allow people to put you in these groups of stereotypes.

And to everyone else, there are lots of teams and sports and clubs at Granger, and they’re all worth a look if you’re interested in joining. The students you meet just might surprise you.