Cheer - and the cost thereof

[jollystomper]

It just seems to be they are pushing these things on kids way too young. I can see that maybe at the middle school or high school level, but 51/2?

Even football goes too low. I have a nephew who started playing organized football at 5. He was one of the fortunate good enough to end up with a full scholarship at a Division I University. But along the way he had 2 knee operations from injuries. As a freshman he played well enough where we was #2 on the receiving depth chart as the season started, but got another slight injury that didn't require surgery but would end up with him missing more than half the season. The team redshirted him so he wouldn't lose a year of eligibility. But this spring he told his dad he had enough with football. He told us at Thanksgiving "I've been playing since I was 5, and I just feel burned out".

Fortunately he is an excellent student and chose the college more for their academics (he had several scholarship offers but interestingly some of the schools said his majors would be restricted if he were on the football team due to schedule conflicts), so he is still enjoying college. But unless a kid has their own passion for something, starting so young seems to be more exploitative, by adults trying to reclaim their lost "glory days".

 

[Sunset]

I think its a scam.
Besides, what can you aspire to as a world famous cheerleader ? Nothing, its not like being a football/baseball/soccer player where you will sign up for 10's of millions.
Look at the lawsuit by the NFL cheerleaders, they are not even paid minimum wage, often not even paid to cheer.
Might as well sign kids up to be on the quilting team, as they are just being sold a pipe dream it will amount to anything (except maybe a modeling career, in which case go directly to modeling school for more change).

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Our kids usually were more involved in outdoors and park rec kind of sports, but one year one kiddo wanted to do track. At the awards dinner it seemed like close to half the kids who got awards ended the season out with injuries. I think the coaches just pushed them too hard. It just didn't seem like fun, those kids were running up needless medical bills, and it was expensive even without the medical bills. The whole emphasis was on strengthening, weight lifting and conditioning and very little emphasis on any kind of stretching or yoga, which seemed pretty old school and pretty easily explained all of injuries in a non-contact sport.

At my last job a 50% failure rate on any kind of project would have a review team looking at it to see what was going wrong and what could be done differently, but most of the parents and coaches just seemed to accept all these injuries as a normal part of school sports.