I hear it everyday, cheerleading isn't a sport. Fotoball players say it. Baseball players say it. You get used to it.

We conditon just like any other sport. We run miles, we do push ups, but we don't lift weights. We lift people. We practice for atleast two hours everyday. If things don't look perfect, we go over time. Our coaches are tough. They expect the best out of us every single practice jsut like any other sport's coach would.

We don't have games. We have competitions. Other sports are given an hour or so to play their game. Some games seem to drag on forever. Those athletes bring what they've done in practice to the game and compete against antoher team for the win. They have plenty of chances in the game to pick their score back up to win. In competition cheerleading, you have two minutes and thirty seconds. You don't jsut ocmpete against one tema usually. You are up against three or more. Everyone is battling for that firstp lace trophy. Even better, the overall grand champion. You either give it all you got on the floor, or in jsut a short two minutes and thrity seconds, you have compeltely lost the entire competiton.

Just like every other sport, you can't give up. You can't jsut stop giving it all you cani n the middle of a routine. Chances are, someone will get hurt. We run and tumble, lift people in the air, and we jump. Its a lot to do in such a short time. Whether you are in a good mood or not, the judges expect you to walk on the floor with smiling faces and walk off with even bigger smiling faces.

People say cheerleading is easy. They sya all we do is jump around the floor with happy faces. It isn't just that. I'm sure any football or baseball player could pick someone up, but I'd like to see them attempt jump and tumble.

Don't diss on a sport when you have never tried it. I'm a competition cheerleader for my school. No, I'm not going to say that you're stupid if you don't like it. There are sports I don't like, but look, at least I said there are "sports" I don't like. I Don't walk around saying that other sports shouldn't be considered sports.

I'm passionate for what I do. I love my SPORT. I work hard for my SPORT, and I'm poroud to say I'm a cheerleader. Like it or not, cheerleaders are athletes to. Not everyone likes the sport, but the least people could do is repsect it.