Sport Status Benefits Cheer Athletes
November 16, 2012
On Oct. 22, 2012, more than 18 years after the MHSAA conducted its first Girls Competitive Cheer Tournament, the American Academy of Pediatrics proclaimed that cheerleading should be designated as a sport at the high school and college levels.
Of course, that’s been the case for some time in Michigan (see July 23, 2010 blog). Since planning began prior to the 1993-94 school year, the MHSAA has attempted to treat girls competitive cheer in all ways like every other MHSAA tournament sport.
The reason for the Academy’s statement is its concern for injuries. While cheerleading does not generate as high a rate of injuries as gymnastics, soccer and basketball, the rate of catastrophic injury is comparatively high.
Researchers note that the injury rate in competitive cheer actually has been declining over the past few years of the 28-year study (1982-83 to 2010-11); and they opine that the decline is related to the increased attention cheerleading has gained as its profile has been raised. The designation as a sport usually leads to improved facilities and equipment and better trained coaches. We agree.
Imperfect Patriots
July 12, 2017
Perhaps the most loyal thing a patriot can do for his or her country is to point out its flaws.
Even before this country’s Independence Day, people were at work to form a union that was imperfect at its start and remains so today. Some of its many flaws have been corrected, even as new flaws have been revealed.
We have imperfect patriots to thank for forming this nation and for helping this nation improve itself. Flawed people of conscience and courage have helped a young nation see itself as it was and also as it could become.
Some patriots have been famous, a few infamous, but most unrecorded in any historical account as they lived and labored in ways that improved their local community and, unknowingly, contributed to change they might not have imagined possible, improving everything from race relations to recycling to renewable energy.
This nation’s patriots are not merely those who lived at the birth of this nation. Every generation has had patriots who have been as important for nation-building as those in the 1700s. Patriots are found in and out of government. In homes and places of worship. They are found in the for-profit business world and in nonprofit organizations.
When, out of sincere loyalty, a person brings constructive criticism to a cause, that person helps to build and better the enterprise. It is as true of this imperfect organization as it is of our nation.