Cheerleading injuries

According to the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Advisors, 64 cheerleaders at the high school or college level sustained fatal, catastrophic or serious injury between 1982 and 2005. "We've had cheerleaders, and we've seen cheerleaders — male and female — around the country get hurt recently, and we can't take that chance," says Mark Brand, associate athletic director for communications at the Arizona State University, where the cheerleading team has been merged with the school's dance team.

photo by Robert Caplin for The New York Times

ASU Webdevil
By Allison Denny

The merge follows a nationwide trend in high schools, colleges and universities to eliminate stunting and tumbling because of safety concerns. Under the new arrangement, the cheer team has been merged with the dance team, creating the new Sun Devil Spirit Squad.

Secondary education senior and former cheer captain Brianna Barcelo said many schools are following in the footsteps of the USC, whose Song Leaders dance instead of cheer, eliminating potentially dangerous stunt and tumble moves.

Elementary education senior Katelyn Jones was on the cheer team for three years and said ASU's safety concerns over stunting and tumbling are a cover-up. "It was all just about money," she said. The team learned about the merge just 10 days before tryouts, Jones added, and the cheerleaders were never asked their opinion or given any advance notice that the merge might happen. Last year stunting was cut but the cheerleaders slowly fought against the athletic department to bring it back, Barcelo said (see cheerleading is a sport).

Another statistic on cheerleading injuries: according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, more than half of the 104 traumatic head and spinal injuries sustained by female high school and college athletes from 1982 to 2005 were from cheerleading!

Two years ago Jessica Smith joined the Sacramento City College. Since she had done cheerleading in high school Jessica joined the cheerleading team....but while she had been the "base" of the pyramid at high school, at Sacramento she was made a "flyer". This was because of Jessica Smith's slim frame; her 105 pound weight was packed into a 4'11" tall body.


During their practice on October 20, 2006 Jessica came to suffer serious injuries. The coach had introduced a new stunt, which had a male cheerleader named Adrien balancing on two other boys thighs, while hoisting Jessica into a headstand on top of his head. After that complex maneuver he was supposed to throw her back, where Jessica would be caught by other cheerleaders.

When the first attempt at that stunt didn't go well Jessica Smith didn't want to continue, but her team coaxed her into going on. At the second try Adrien lost his balance while hoisting Jessica, sending her straight to the thin mat from a height of 15 feet. "I hit and heard my neck crack. I was screaming after that," recalls Jessica. She broke her vetebrae at two places, missing paralysis and even death, by millimetres according to the doctors.

Jessica went two months with a halo device bolted to her skull that held her head and neck in place. It was a 10-pound steel contraption held in place by four pins drilled into her skull. Smith describes the experience as "like being in jail, behind bars."

"The glitter, the makeup and the curls in our hair make cheerleading so deceiving," Smith now says. "We look like pretty little things. Well, most athletes throw balls around. We throw other cheerleaders around. What’s harder? What’s harder to catch?"