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But in order to have this sport for women they have to ditch another sport for women(or come up with an additional sport for men), because of Title IX.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
Otherwise known as shafting the people it was put in place to benefit.
To clarify, it was the volleyball team getting jobbed. But to me, the real offense was not the volleyballers of the cheerleaders, but the school snaking around federal laws by playing with rosters and other underhanded shit. Again, if they want to save money, cut the football team. They take the lion's share of athletic budgets, and have a huge number of players (sometimes in excess of 60). That's like three or four women's teams, and the equipment costs are greater than ten-fold what most teams need.
Tough. Cheering is a fad sport with little momentum, volleyball is an old international tradition reflected in the Olympics. Volleyball was also established at this school. Any ditching was done to volleyball, not cheer.Quote:
Originally Posted by littlelolligagged
Or are you advocating that ANY new sport that comes along should deserve a spot (and funds) from the university?
They're cutting their other women's programs. They say it doesn't matter because they've had a competitive cheer section for a while, and that still provides balance. They don't need to come up with an additional sport for men, because things are already massively lopsided *Title IX doesn't require 50/50, anyway* They could keep Cheer and create three new women's teams and I'll bet they still wouldn't have even reached parity, in numbers, funding, or access. Yes, it's possible they could take funds from competitive cheer and devote it to other women's athletics. But, making the most charitable assumptions, they were cutting other women's sports for funds to devote to competitive cheer. A wash. And, if we assume cheer is a sport, taking funds from it and putting it toward keeping women's volleyball, or baskeball, or cross-country or whatever would also be a wash. From a Title IX perspective. Realistically, they're not taking funds from their other women's sports and putting them to Cheer, they're taking them out to increase funding for a Division III male football team, or more trips for a men's basketball team. If they actually value their Cheer, if it's actually not just a smokescreen to try and hide from Title IX enforcement, then they'll get the funding from somewhere else.Quote:
Originally Posted by littlelolligagged
But considering the bands work twice as hard as the teams they support? Whole stadiums fill up to watch DCIQuote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
What I'm saying is that the best way for their to be equal opportunities between men and women is to equalize the funding, not necessarily the numbers. There is really very little reason why there can't be a competitive cheer team and a volleyball team. And maybe even a pétanque team. Because you're right about the money-pit of football taking money away from all of the other sports.Quote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
:bored: 20 years ago people might have said snowboarding was a fad sport without any momentum. Now it is an Olympic sport. Try again.
How often do whole stadiums do so?Quote:
Originally Posted by Knux897
I'm not dissing bands. I'm just saying they should not be varsity sports. They are, BTW, paid for, which is the point of contention here. Club sports generally pay their whole way. Varsity sports generally pay none of their way. I did both as an undergrad.
[QUOTE=littlelolligagged;39957]What I'm saying is that the best way for their to be equal opportunities between men and women is to equalize the funding, not necessarily the numbers. There is really very little reason why there can't be a competitive cheer team and a volleyball team. And maybe even a pétanque team. Because you're right about the money-pit of football taking money away from all of the other sports.
That's what I'm saying. Let cheer do the same as something other than corporate product placement, which is what it has been thus far. If it can, it deserves varsity status. Cheer hasn't earned it yet.Quote:
:bored: 20 years ago people might have said snowboarding was a fad sport without any momentum. Now it is an Olympic sport. Try again.
Ultimate has club teams at hundreds of colleges. It's been around two decades longer, and is widely played in most developed countries. Should it be a varsity sport? Probably not. But it's way ahead of cheer.
What the hell is wrong with accepting club status? Most schools don't even grant rugby and lacrosse varsity status. It's the height of arrogance to claim that cheerleading should be placed ahead of those established sports.
Wouldn't it be great if all this funding was for academics instead of athletics. :bored:
YES, ABSOLUTELY!
Actually, I have no problem with college sports per se, I'm just opposed to scholarships and the like. The point is education, nothing else should ever trump that.
I have to question that. After all, George W. Bush made his reputation at Yale on the cheerleading team, not in the classroom. There is a history there, it's only recently that there has been an incentive to organize and fund cheerleading teams on the level that we're beginning to see.Quote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
I understand that there is an element of manipulation going on here to cut budgets and satisfy these gender requirements, but it doesn't mean the whole concept of organized cheerleading as a sport is crap.
UPDATE. Of sorts:
Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/sp...erleading.html
July 22, 2010
Competitive Cheer Fans See Acceptance in Future
By KATIE THOMAS
When Felecia Mulkey was hired as the coach of the new competitive cheer team at the University of Oregon in 2008, one of the first things the university did was not call it that.
The name conjured outdated images of pompoms and miniskirts. Calling it the team stunts and gymnastics program better described her squad of talented athletes. The message was clear: Mulkey’s team would be cheering for itself alone. And the activity deserved to be considered a sport.
“If we can get the world to understand,” she said, “we’re not taking the place of cheerleading, but we are opening up opportunities for women.”
But on Wednesday a federal judge in Connecticut delivered a blow to universities, like Oregon, that classify competitive cheer as a varsity sport, ruling that Quinnipiac University’s team could not be counted toward compliance with Title IX, the federal law mandating gender equity in education.
“Competitive cheer may, some time in the future, qualify as a sport under Title IX,” Judge Stefan R. Underhill of the United States District Court in Bridgeport wrote in his decision. “Today, however, the activity is still too underdeveloped and disorganized to be treated as offering genuine varsity athletic participation opportunities for students.”
While the decision applies only to Quinnipiac, women’s sports advocates said the ruling could lead other universities to reconsider their decision to offer the sport, which has been criticized by those who say institutions view it as an easy fix when they need to pump up women’s participation numbers. Meanwhile, supporters of competitive cheer acknowledged that their sport was in its infancy, but they said the ruling was only a setback in what they see as an inevitable march toward acceptance.
Underhill’s decision was a victory for the five women’s volleyball players who, along with their coach, sued Quinnipiac in 2009 after the university announced it was cutting their team and adding competitive cheerleading.
In Quinnipiac’s case, the judge noted that the university created the new team by hiring the woman who formerly coached the traditional sideline cheerleading squad. She elevated 16 cheerleaders from the sideline team and recruited the rest from the student body.
Quinnipiac released a statement Thursday expressing disappointment with the decision, and said it intended to add women’s rugby as a varsity sport in 2011-12.
Beyond Quinnipiac, Underhill noted that competitive cheer is not recognized by either the National Collegiate Athletic Association or the federal Department of Education, and intercollegiate teams lacked a playoff system. Although the six universities that recognize it have set up an organization to oversee the sport at the college level, Underhill said the group, the National Competitive Stunt and Tumbling Association, was a “loosely defined, unincorporated association” without a board of directors, a voting system for members or “other hallmarks of a governing national athletics organization.”
“The judge’s decision was pretty straightforward,” said Lisa Maatz, director of public policy and government relations at the A.A.U.W., a women’s advocacy group. “I think what it means for these schools is it should put them on notice that they cannot use competitive cheer as a way to undercut women’s athletic opportunities at their school.”
Neena Chaudhry, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, agreed. “I think it would be hard for schools to show that cheerleading should count under Title IX at this point,” she said.
Oregon and the University of Maryland each sought Thursday to differentiate their programs. Oregon noted that it conducted a nationwide search before it hired Mulkey. Maryland said it was studying the ruling, but a spokesman said the university discussed its plans with the Office for Civil Rights, the arm of the education department that enforces Title IX, before adding the sport in 2003.
According to the judge’s ruling, a Quinnipiac official testified that the university never sought permission from the Office for Civil Rights because, in the Maryland case, the office had refused to issue a ruling on whether the team qualified as a sport. Instead, the office advised Maryland to use its own discretion.
Mulkey said she was encouraged that the judge left the door open for the sport to be recognized in the future. Nearly 64,000 girls participated in “competitive spirit squads” in the 2009-10 academic year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.
Jonathan Orleans, a lawyer for the volleyball players, was careful not to disparage those who participate in cheer. “We don’t question whether the competitive cheer members are athletes,” he said. “But our claim was that competitive cheer as an activity does not meet the criteria to be recognized as a varsity sport at this time.”
Mulkey said Underhill’s facts relating to the stunt and tumbling association are outdated. She said the group recently established a board of directors (of which she is a member), hired an executive director and set up detailed rules for competition. An executive with USA Cheer, an umbrella organization that oversees multiple forms of cheerleading, said his group has been consulting with Title IX experts to help the college teams set up a format that will comply with the law.
“I think within the next six months, you’re going to see a really solid organization,” Mulkey said.
The board also recently voted to change the name of the sport from competitive cheer, although she said the new name has not yet been announced.
At Oregon, she said, the simple fix has done wonders for the team’s image on campus. “It was the perception of that word, cheer,” she said. “Once people understand, you get a lot more fans, and some of that perception goes away.”
Also, where do you come off saying bands work twice as hard as athletes?Quote:
Originally Posted by Knux897
What the hell does Bush having cheered have to do with it? :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
And actually cheerleading has always been are financially supported activity. But it hasn't been a varsity sport, just like band hasn't. This is not denigrating cheerleading, just saying that it's not a sport. Of course, we aren't talking about cheerleading, so why even bring it up? We are talking about a recent new sport. Me, I'm all for new sports. Anything that gets kid engaged in constructive extracurriculars that teach them drive and discipline is a good thing. So, I have no opposition to cheer per se, just an opposition to Lolli's assertion that they deserve special dispensation and get jumped ahead of many other long-standing sports whose existence predates cheer by generations.
I didn't say it was. It's definitely a sport. Just not a varsity sport.Quote:
I understand that there is an element of manipulation going on here to cut budgets and satisfy these gender requirements, but it doesn't mean the whole concept of organized cheerleading as a sport is crap.
And basically we can't even consider this Quinnipiac case. There was so much malfeasance involved that it obscures the issue of whether cheer is a varsity sport. Let's just agree that Quinnipiac deserved to have the book thrown at them, and consider cheers separately.
Yes, well, a name change is clearly what they need. "Cheer" is far too reminiscent of the bubble-headed pretty girls fawning on male athletes and having few skills. Since it is gymnastic, they should have some gymnastic-related name. Team tumbling or some such.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
It does bring up another issue, though. Gymnastics training is the core of cheer, and it is basically an extension of gymnastics. That's another reason to question its assessment as an individual sport. Is it really different than adding a new dimension to gymnastics? I'd argue that it's something like synchronized diving: just a new event under the diving rubric. So probably cheer should just be part of the gymnastics team. Imagine if they added a new women's gymnastics event, say something along the lines of those rope routines that they do at Cirque du Soleil. Wouldn't it be pretty silly to call it a new sport? "Rope routines need to be added as a new sport! How dare you disenfranchise these young women! It's very athletic and takes a lot of dedication!" Well, it requires a gymnastics education with some specialized skills. Wouldn't it just be a new event in gymnastics, and would be featured at gymnastics competition? Why should cheer be any different? Seems pretty preposterous to take a bunch of women who are gymnasts and call them something else because they are doing it coordinately rather than solo. Again, see the synchronized diving or swimming analogies: both are separate events of swimming and diving, not novel sports.
Because I've done it and I can confidently say it really is true. To do something like it takes an extreme level of physical athleticism, militant attitude and absolute dedication that most people arn't willing to give. The only reason people don't realize its potential as an extreme recreative sport is because its overshadowed by "the hardworking and amazing" football playersQuote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
Um, OK. You are absolutely amazing and deserve plaudits right and left. So much better than everybody else, and nobody works as hard as you!Quote:
Originally Posted by Knux897
Get a grip man. All people who do well at something are worthy of respect for their hard work and talent.
Wait, US colleges have to provide (semi-professional) sports teams?
You guys get weirder with every article.
They have to provide equal opportunities by gender.
I suppose they could meet this by having no athletic teams at all.
If the outcome is routinely decided by judgement then it should not be consider a sport.
Like figure skating or boxing?
Yes. Either of those could be a sport if the winner was decided by the opponent failing to perform.
IMO, a sport is something that is a direct, physical confrontation between opposing teams/players. Anything else is a competition.
New member? Welcome!
Loads of sports are determined by judgement. In fact, go far enough and all sports are decided by judgement. Take football (soccer), how do we score football - by goals. Clear and simple, right? Right? Wrong!Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
How is a goal determined . . . by judgement. As witnessed so clearly by England's goal at the World Cup that crossed so far beyond the line it just wasn't funny. But the referee determined that it hadn't crossed the line and his judgement is what matters.
Take Tennis - is that sport? I'd clearly say so. But ask John "You can't be serious" McEnroe if there's any judgement involved in that? The rules are clear - did the ball cross the line, hit the line etc, etc, but the reality is not always so clear.
I challenge you to name even a single "sport" that involves no judgement. Closest I can think of is things like Chess which are better classified as games than sports.
"Competitive cheer" makes me think of Glee.
http://trueslant.com/donovan/files/2...-sylvester.jpg
I think a martial arts tournament which involved the "opponent failing to perform" would be quite a bloody mess. Literally.
When do you plan to break the news to your girlfriend that you are gay?Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
After seeing whatsherface, competitive cheer makes me think of Best in Show.
Look, can we just recognize that respect is due to anybody who strives to excel at their discipline of choice? And not all of these will get the recognition of "varsity sport." Clearly some people with chips on their shoulders....
:haha:Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
Actually I've always loved musicals/singing etc - was in the Chapel Choir all through my childhood despite being an ardent atheist.
Amanda loves Glee and seemed to get genuinely upset when the last in the series was aired and realised we'd have to make months for the next one. Its her that got me into it.
A likely story.... ;)
Me, I have a phobia of musical numbers. Unreasonably so, actually.
Barbarian.Quote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
Yeah, I'm not really sure why. I don't like opera either. It's odd, because I generally love music, have fairly broad tastes, and can find redeeming qualities in most musical forms, even if I'm not particularly fond of them. Musicals and opera are at the bottom of my list, even below some forms that I consider much inferior musically. Just a taste thing, I guess.
I don't see why schools should provide the sporting opportunities anyway. Seems like it would funnel money from education to sports, and with less popular sport, it would be impossible to organize it due to lack of interest. For example, where I grew up there were three high schools relatively close to each other. In their 'area' there were (at least) 5 football clubs, 3 volleyball clubs, but only one gymnastics club. If each school would provide their own sport teams, the gymnastics might not have been viable at every school.
And there'd be no need for determining what a sport is, as long as there are enough people interested in it you could start a club for it.