Title IX was a law that was enacted several years back (1972) calling for the equality of women in the world of education and athletics in federally funded activities. Essentially it says, women can do more than just cheer. Cheer leading for many years has been thrashed by the mainstream media. From Varsity Blues promiscuous cheerleaders, to Bring it On's blond ditses; cheer leading has been under fire from every angle. From those who call for its heathenistic head, to those abdicating it as a vital cog in the world known as athletics.
How this fits into softball is this: a number of girls have been hoping to get away from the every girl should be a cheerleader. Softball (for that matter every single girls sporting event I have been to) has put themselves back into the cheerleader mentality while sacrificing the uniform. Sure, instead of holding pom-poms and wearing skirts, you are now wearing a leather mitt and a visor, but you are still yelling:
"Pump, pump, pump it up, pump that wildcat spirit up."
-technically this is just a reappearance of the basketball cheer that has been reincarnated by the softball girls, who were most likely the ones who would say they would never be caught dead being a cheerleader
The cheers from the bench during basketball games are really no better:
"d-up (echo d-up), d-up (echo d-up), etc."
Seriously if the basketball girls have any flaw, it is obviously the fact that the cheers they wanted to use were stolen by the girls who are wearing the skirts at the end of the court who have absolutely no idea what the score is. They aren't even facing the floor. (Perhaps this is the need for the basketball girls to cheer acting as a mediator between those upon the floor and those giving voice to the masses).
At no point in time during my athletic days (and trust me I had a lot of time to devote to it) did I ever really feel the need to place a teammates name in a cheer.
"Ryan, bo byan, banana fanna fo fyan, go ryan."
All I am really abdicating is the understanding that the cheerleaders-cheer and the players-play, and under no circumstances should the two be mixed. Essentially it comes to this...every little girl has been a cheerleader for Halloween; and at some point in time this girl decided she wanted to do something else with her life than choreographed arm movements and rhyming syllables upon which she became irritated and antagonistic by anyone asking her if she wanted to be a cheerleader (a perfectly normal and reasonable question to ask a 10 year old). Yet when she grows up and puts on a non-cheerleading uniform, what is it that she does: choreographed cheers and witty refrains.
I have been criticized in the past for not taking girls sports seriously...however, for me to take girls sports seriously the cheering has to come from outside the lines. The Dallas Cowboys play and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders cheer because that is how it is supposed to be done. Not one person would take them seriously if Tony Romo broke out into sudden spastic arm movements and calling to the crowd:
"Up up on your feet, the Dallas Cowboys cant be beat."
Likewise to dress the cheerleaders in football pads would be a complete waste.
Beside: no one really wants to see Tony Romo in a hot pants with calf high white boots.
So please could we refrain fom staged cheers and dugout antics; if so, I will quit asking my soccer team if this is boys soccer or girls soccer.
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