Cheerleading: Makeup and Smiles Covering the Injuries

Underneath all the makeup and hairspray cheerleaders put on to make their sport look easy, people do not see the many injuries they go through behind closed doors. Cheerleading has become one of the most dangerous sports to take part in. Bekah Rammos, a coach at the University of Florida, stated to Alligator writer, RJ Schaffer in an interview, “a cheerleader needs to have good technical foundation otherwise he or she will be more prone in the future to be seriously injured.” According to a New York Times article on cheerleading by Bill Pennington, records show that “of 104 catastrophic injuries sustained by female high school and college athletes from 1982-2005-head and spinal trauma that occasionally led to death-more than half [over 52] resulted from cheerleading...All sports combined did not surpass cheerleading.''

On the Ralph C. Mahar Varsity cheerleading team there have been many injuries to the team over the past year. These injuries include; two concussions, fractured ribs, broken toes, broken wrist (in two places), sprained ankles, fractured growth plate, nose bleeds, sprained wrists, bruised collarbones, pulled muscles, torn muscles, pulled ligaments, bruises and cuts in general, and various pain developed in knees, hips, ankles, wrists, shoulders, and lower back. These injuries may or may not seem very serious to you, but it gets worse when you reach an all star level.

Ralph C. Mahar’s own history teacher, Robin Allain-Moody, is a coach at East Celebrity Elite All Star Gym in Leominster. In an interview, she reported that she had witnessed many [serious] injuries. Some injuries were; multiple ankle surgeries to be able to walk again, broken neck from falling on her head, several broken ankles, a flyer(girl in the air during stunting) fell backwards and hit her head off of the gym floor and blacked out resulting in a hospital visit after not waking up for hours, a spring from the tumble track(a safety mat) went through a girl’s hand while moving it, multiple broken bones, a girl lost her two front teeth, and they have had over fifty concussions.

In an interview with Coach Jim Woodward, he had talked about the injuries he has seen over his many years of coaching the Mahar football team. These were; a broken leg, concussions, sprained ankles, bruised ribs, broken fingers, broken wrists and arms, knee/ACL injuries, and eye pokes. Coach Woodward reported that he doesn't see his athletes get injured often, but when they do, the injuries can keep them out of playing for a long period of time. In football, they do have prevention methods. They have their helmets and shoulder pads reconditioned every year, and buy new helmets every 10 years maximum. The team also uses rib protectors to prevent bruised ribs. Some players use tape on their elbows and forearms to prevent turf burn as well as higher socks. In the end, Coach Woodward stated, “all sports have injuries but you just have to try your best because, as much as we wished it didn't, sometimes it just happens.”

Injuries like these can be hard to prevent because they have no padding or helmets, but there are things that can be done to lessen these chances. Using mats for everything cheerleaders do can be useful, as well as using drills to make sure that the athlete can do the skill before going full out into the stunt or tumbling passes. So next time you see a cheerleader all dressed up performing, don't think of it as something so easy.