A story in the Dallas Morning News about the dangers of high school cheerleading certainly surprised me, and I imagine that many other parents will be equally surprised and dismayed. The article shows that cheerleading accounted for two-thirds of sports-related deaths or serious injuries
to high school girls over the past 25 years, according to a new national study. Here are excerpts from the article:
It’s because cheerleading increasingly
requires complex – and dangerous – gymnastics stunts, said report
author Frederick Mueller, who directs the University of North
Carolina’s National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research in
Chapel Hill, N.C."Many of the coaches weren’t ready for
that kind of change and weren’t ready to teach those kinds of
activities" when cheerleading shifted away from merely pom-poms and
chant-leading, Mueller said.Today’s cheerleaders perform
such athletic feats as the basket toss, where a cheerleader is thrown
20 feet in the air and then caught in her teammates’ interlocked arms.
There’s also the helicopter toss, where a cheerleader makes a
180-degree, helicopter-blade rotation after being flung in the air.By way of comparison, last year’s rate for catastrophic injuries in
cheerleading was 2.0 injuries out of 100,000 athletes. For football, it
was 3.2 injuries out of 100,000 athletes, Mueller said.By his study’s tally, 103 female high school students suffered
sports-related catastrophic injuries – deaths, permanent disabilities
and serious injuries such as skull fractures – between 1982 and 2007.
Of that number, 67 were cheerleaders.After cheerleading came gymnastics, with nine injuries, and track, with seven.
I know the danger of cheerleading but does anyone know where I can go to report a coach that will humuliate a cheer member for a missed spot or stunt and uses profanity and uncalled remarks when correcting this child in front of the other team members?
Lynn, you can always start with the principal. He or she is responsible for everything that happens at the school, even if there are intermediate supervisors. Good luck to you.