Cheerleader, high up in the air

Gone are the days when cheerleading meant pompoms, banners, and daring kicks in the air as loud cheers resound from the gallery. The activity once intended to be a side show at a sporting event has become an acrobatic sport, with injury-defying and potentially life-ending flips from 20 feet up in the air.

Most states still consider cheerleading an activity, supervised only by state education groups that also regulate activities like chess clubs, debating groups, and French clubs. In 15 to 18 states, cheerleading is now considered a sport, subject to the supervision of a state athletic association.

Should this change? Is cheerleading a sport, and is it dangerous?

* A 20-year-old standout died Monday in Watertown, Mass., due to an injury she sustained at a weekend cheerleading competition in Worcester, Mass. Her death arose from a swelling of the linings of both lungs, which decreased the organ’s ability to take in air. She had been accidentally kicked in the chest, as she fell from a great height and her teammates tried to catch her with their legs.

* In 2006, a 24-year-old cheerleader in Texas died of complications from a paralyzing fall she sustained during a practice session.

* In 2005, a 14-year-old from Medford, Mass., died when her spleen ruptured. She was executing a stunt which required her to be tossed high up into the air, but she landed improperly.

* In 2006, the Center for Injury Research and Policy at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio conducted a study that evaluated data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance system. The researchers examined data from 1990 to 2002 on cheerleading-related injuries treated in emergency rooms nationwide. The cheerleaders ranged from 5 to 18 years old. The number of such injuries in 2002 (22,900) was more than twice the number in 1990 (10,900).

* The National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research found that during the period 1982-2006, there were 107 direct catastrophic injuries — affecting the head and spine, and may be severe enough to cause death — on female athletes (high school and college). Injuries related to cheerleading reached 60, which was 56 percent of reported injuries. The Center’s director observed that the real number of injuries could be much higher, since many injuries are not treated in hospital emergency rooms but in private physicians’ clinics.

The advent of more acrobatic cheerleading routines harks back to the 1980s. At the time, gymnastics teams were eliminated from hundreds of high schools, not least because school districts did not want to face mounting injury insurance claims for gymnastics. Gifted female gymnasts migrated to cheerleading, and their physical skills and competitive appetite transformed cheerleading sequences into high-risk routines.

The incidence of injuries is low vis-à-vis the millions of cheerleading participants, and minor injuries account for about 70 percent of cheerleading injuries.  But cheerleading is responsible for a disproportionate number of major injuries: in the NCAA, 25 percent of catastrophic injury insurance claims payments since 1998 came from cheerleading. Only football injury claims was higher, yet there are only 12 cheerleaders for every 100 football players.

The most cited cause is inadequately trained coaches. They make squads perform complex stunts without adequately preparing them through scientific progressions to develop the skills needed to execute the stunts safely.

It may be time to re-classify cheerleading into a sport and have more state regulation over it.