In the October issue of The Standard, Feature Editor Ananda Bhatia wrote a fantastic story about some of our varsity cheerleaders whom also cheer competitively. I had the incredible opportunity to help her out and take pictures for her story, which meant sitting in on a KCAC( Kansas City Athletic Cheer) practice on a Sunday morning. Given that I had a history of being not-so-supportive of cheerleaders, that was not an ideal way to spend the last day of the weekend. I tried to get other photographers to cover it for me, (five other people, actually.) but nobody could do it due to church or babysitting or other various excuses. So i loaded up my truck (car) and drove myself to the warehouse their practices take place in. I situated myself next to the blue mat and tried to avoid all of the questioning stares. I gazed around at all of the banners placed on the wall, stating things like: ‘UCA NATIONAL CHAMPIONS LEVEL 5″ and other various titles of that sort. I stifled a laugh that was threatening to come out, and what could be a better way to accumulate more cheerleaders stares than by laughing for no apparent reason? But still, that humorous thought lingered in my mind: how hard could it be to win cheer competitions? KCAC obviously had a better team than plenty of other places, made clear by the more than twenty banners of competitions KCAC has won dating between 2011 and present. The coach called for warmups, which consisted of back handsprings, fulls, and stunts where they threw a girl into the air like a rag doll and catching her once gravity kicked in. Although I would never be a flyer anyways because clearly I’m about a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier than most flyers, I would have that constant fear of falling. Even if I had a choice, I wouldn’t be a flyer. Much respect to those girls who are willing to do that. After warmups were over, they got into their routine which was perfectly in time with a mash up of popular songs and a voice that repeated their team name at random times throughout. I watched the routine in awe, unable to take pictures because I was overwhelmed with all of the action going on in front of me. I couldn’t decide if I should take pictures of the flyers or the people doing flips or the ones doing the dance in the front. My mind was in a jumble. There was a plethora of things they did that I don’t even know the name of. Needless to say, I was speechless. Before that Sunday, I had always believed the stereotypes and generalizations, and I never considered cheerleading to be a sport. Between routines the girls sat in a circle and had a pep talk about things they needed to do better. They seemed more like a team than any sports team I’ve ever been on. I found myself actually kind of…jealous. From the routine I’d been given the great opportunity to witness, I noticed that it takes more athleticism to be a cheerleader than any sport I’ve ever watched. Honestly, they probably have more athleticism in their pinky finger than I have in my whole body. To be a cheerleader, you have to be flexible, you have to have insane endurance, and you have to have impeccable timing and focus. If you’re doing one of the dances in the front, you have to stay in time with everyone because you don’t want to be the one who is a second behind the rest of the dancers. That would cause the girls doing back handsprings across the mat to run into you and mess everything up. These athletes practice an incredible amount just for a two minute performance in front of picky judges that have the ability to tear apart your performance in the blink of an eye. I have a new found respect for competitive cheerleaders. After being biased one way for basically my whole life and being blown away just by watching a two hour cheer practice, my mind has been changed. I have come to my conclusion, the sentence that wraps up this story like a pretty little bow on a birthday present. Even with all of the controversy that has surrounded this question for ages, I believe 100% that competitive cheerleading is a sport.