Upward Basketball and Cheerleading

Care to provide some empirical evidence to back up this overgeneralization?

 

Which part is the overgeneralization?

 

My daughter is involved in competitive cheer as well as volleyball - the cheer is at least as demanding physically as volleyball - and has helped her overall flexiblilty and power in volleyball. I'm not a big fan of the dance, but love the tumbling etc. Several of my older daughters friends were into cheer - all have gone on to college and are doing well

My preference is the volleyball, and was drug kicking and screaming into the cheer - but I have to admit, that my duaghter became a better all around athlete as a result of the tumbling etc that she learned due to cheer activites

 

I'd just be interested in seeing data that backed that up.

I'm not going to say "all things cheerleading are wonderful." Of course not. But when you make overgeneralizations...statements like the above...you just might mess up chances to minister to, let's say, a former cheerleader...who would hear that and say, "oh, so THAT's what he thinks of me..."

 

Well....I sorta kinda agree with corndoggy in a round about way, though I only have ancedotal evidence to back up my opinion. Here 'bout it is the cheerleaders that are into to attitudes, ideas and lifestyles that are not God honoring and in my belief you can't be successful without being God honoring. Then again, my definition of success is different than most folks.

BUT...

There is a big difference between competitive cheer and the type of cheerleading that is done in most high schools in the south.

Competitive cheer is all about athletics and not so much about showing off the body in an immodest way. Girls who are involved in competitive cheering work hard to develop not only dance skills (rhythm, grace and coordination) but also gymnastic skills (tumbling and acrobatics). They deserve their praise as much as any guy on the football field.

This type of cheering is not practiced at most high schools in my area. Instead, our cheerleaders provide mostly noise and eye candy due to liability reasons and aren't even allowed to build a pyramid.

What sort of cheering is practiced in Upwards is not for me to say as our church only sponsers basketball and our girls are encouraged just as much as the boys to participate in that. Someone else will have to tell us just how Upward cheerleading works.

Knowing what an excellent program Upward Basketball is, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they can pull off a cheerleading program that is as God honoring as the basketball program.

 

It's just my experience that usually the most popular cheerleaders are the ones most likely to crash and burn once they get out of high school and that popularity goes away. There won't be any cheerleaders in my house.

 

corndogggy,
You are way overgeneralizing, just like some other people leaped to conclusions about hunting.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing some statistics on that issue as I'm aware of some cheerleaders that have become quite successful, for example, the current president of the United States and the current ambassador to Poland.

 

Typically, the ones who are serious about it and treat it as a sport usually do well. You can't hardly be on a college squad without this attitude. Those people, such as the president, walk away with life lessons just like any other sports participant. And, in college, they actually do some good - they lead the cheers, unlike earlier levels where they're often mostly ignored except for the eye candy factor.

My problem is that often times the levels before college, especially high school cheerleading, promotes a certain culture that is more based on shaking their goody-goody jailbait butt in a mini-skirt rather than being based on teamwork, healthy competition, fitness, and athletics.

Once you get beyond college... it's 100% eye candy. You can't tell me that the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders are there to lead the cheers of tens of thousands of people. No, they are there to drool over.

Obviously there are exceptions... that's just my opinion.

 

bigger picture

That last sentence is the bigger picture.

We have it at our church, and lots of non-members have brought their girls in. Many, I suspect, haven't had exposure to Jesus at all.

Teach them the principles of God and the modesty will come with it.

 

Our church has been doing Upward Basketball and Cheerleading for several years. We have seen dozens of children come to know Christ.
here's our church's page on the Upward program.
http://peopleplace.org/templates/System/details.asp?id=19753&PID=119748