Is Cheerleading safe?

On June 29th, 2009 the National Center for catastrophic sports injury research (NCCSIR) released a report that claimed that over the last 25 years over 65% of the injuries to female athletes were caused by cheerleading. Ever since then the debate over cheerleading safety has been going strong. There is even rumblings of some kind of legislation defining cheerleading as a sport and setting regulations into place to ensure the safety of the athletes. So the question begs to be asked. Is cheerleading safe?

This question is near and dear to my heart. I am the administrator of a small cheer squad. My 13 year old daughter is on the squad and is a "flyer". A flyer is the student (female, unless you are in Japan) that is at the top of the pyramids and the one that gets thrown into the air. Flyers are also the athletes most likely to suffer catastrophic injuries. This research has been eye opening. There are two camps in this issue, one that warns of the dangers of cheerleading and the other that acknowledges those dangers, but spends more time promoting education.

The National Cheer Safety Foundation is a group started by a mother of a young cheerleader that was injured while cheering. Their main goal seems to be to make parent's of cheerleaders become aware of the dangers that can be present in cheerleading, and to empower them to speak up if they think that proper safety is not being followed. Their website encourages people to tell their injury stories online and features a spokesperson that is a young lady that survived a severe injury while cheering. The stance of the NCF is that the statistics reflecting injuries during cheering are actually too low. They suggest that a number of injuries are minor and are treated by parents coaches or family doctors. Since the statistics are taken from emergency room visits, this has merit.

The group most responsible for the other side of the argument, and the one I agree with, would have to be the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators. (AACCA) Their contention is that the statistics being quoted from the NCCSIR is a compilation of over twenty years worth of data, and that cheerleading has actually become safer in the last two years. They advocate education and certification of the coaches, incremental skill building, restricted performance surfaces and a strict set of rules. The example is given referring to gymnastics programs. There is a certification program for gymnastics coaches, each student masters a skill set before moving up to the next level and proper equipment is generally being used. AACCA wants that to happen for cheerleading. They are working with other programs to first off get cheerleading recognized as a sport in all 50 states and to have set guidelines in place to educate coaches and keep athletes safe.

Back to my reason for researching this topic. My squad is competing in a classic in three weeks. The groups we are competing with is the Christian Cheerleaders of America. One of the first things that we were sent once we registered to compete, was a three page list of rules directly from the AACCA website. We agreed to adhere to those rules at the competition, but we have also take them to heart within our program. I am impressed with what I found at the AACCA website and plan to take their safety course so I can be a better administrator. So I do think that cheerleading is safe, when it is practiced in a safe manner. Now we just need to get everyone practicing it safely.