BY HANNAH PURKEY

In print | Published October 21, 2010

Before fall break, my developmental psychology class discussed the use of concepts in the learning of language. The grouping of new objects into conceptual categories helps young children learn new words quickly. However, defining the boundaries of these conceptual categories can be difficult even for us much-older children. While the entire class agreed that a Solo cup and a coffee mug both fit under the concept of “cup,” there was more debate about the addition of the greatest cup of all: the Stanley Cup.

Things got even more interesting with the introduction of the conceptual category of sports. When the professor asked for some examples of popular sports, I was interested in which of America’s favorite pastimes would be thrown out first. Had baseball playoff fever overtaken Swat? Or would the start of football season be foremost on students’ minds? After a short pause, the first sport offered up was … quidditch!

Oh, Swatties. I probably shouldn’t be surprised anymore, but really? It didn’t have to be hockey, or even a sport played here at Swarthmore, but a non-fictitious one would have made me feel better about Swat’s connection to the sports world. When I recovered from my shock long enough to return to the class discussion, which by this point had moved past Harry Potter and into more mainstream sports franchises, I realized we were having more difficulty in defining what constitutes a sport than I would have expected. The debate over what a sport is, in fact, is being fought in arenas outside of psychology classes and has far-reaching consequences few would suspect from such a simple question.

Recently, the debate over the definition of a sport has centered on the recognition, or lack there of, of cheerleading as a collegiate sport. Last year the issue was put to rest, at least temporarily, not on an athletic field but instead in a courtroom. It started in 2009 when Quinnipiac University of Connecticut wanted to drop the women’s volleyball team and add competitive women’s cheerleading as a varsity sport to fulfill Title IX requirements that dictate gender equality in collegiate sports.

Members of the volleyball team responded with a class action suit against the school on the basis of gender discrimination. A judge ruled in their favor this summer, arguing that although competitive cheer may have a future, as of now “the activity is still too underdeveloped and disorganized to be treated as offering genuine varsity athletic participation opportunities for students.”

Quinnipiac is one of several schools that recognize cheerleading as a varsity sport, including schools like University of Oregon and the University of Maryland. A study of cheerleaders in these programs, published in the journal Social Problems, shows that a driving force behind the fight to recognize cheerleading as a sport is not a matter of Title IX requirements but a matter of respect. Cheerleaders at Delta State said they felt designated as second-class athletes, even though they were the only of the school’s teams to bring home a national championship. “I want it to be considered a sport so people can’t trash it,” one cheerleader said in the study.

Most of the cheerleaders that were interviewed express hope that NCAA recognition would force other athletes to rethink the typical stereotypes of cheerleading as “girly.” Participants at the University of Maryland broadcasted their hopes for sports status with slogans such as, “Hold my weights while I stunt with your girlfriend” and, “Other sports use one ball, we use two.”

While the aim of garnering respect from other athletes is admirable, more changes need to be made to cheerleading to take it out of the realm of supporting other sports and turn it into a sport in its own right. Felicia Mulkey, the coach of the team stunts and gymnastics program at University of Oregon, seemed to think that a new name would be enough to give cheerleading a new start. “It was the perception of that word, cheer,” Mulkey said for an article in the New York Times. “Once people understand, you get a lot more fans and some of that perception goes away.”

While a new name might help with stereotypes of cheerleading, it is not the only thing that needs to change. Anyone who has watched an actual cheerleading competition can attest to how physically demanding the stunts done by the teams are. Yet it is difficult for many to get past the emphasis on aesthetics to the real athletic showmanship. Cheer cannot just be removed from the name of the sport; it also has to be removed from the goals of the programs. While defining the concept of a sport is difficult, most argue that a main objective of any sports program cannot be the support of other sports, as cheerleading still does to this day. There needs to be more competitions within the sport and less sideline cheering for other sports.

Team gymnastics is an interesting idea for a sport, and as the judge in the Quinnipiac case said, there may well be a future for it in collegiate athletics. However, this future will never be realized without some serious changes to cheerleading programs. Competitive cheerleaders are athletes and deserve the type of programs that will allow them to be recognized as such, as long as it is not at the expense of other women’s athletics programs.

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