William T Goodall wrote:
> http://tinyurl.com/2bpnpe
>
> "Of 104 catastrophic injuries sustained by female high school and
> college athletes from 1982 to 2005 — head and spinal trauma that
> occasionally led to death — more than half resulted from
> cheerleading, according to the National Center for Catastrophic
> Sports Injury Research. All sports combined did not surpass
> cheerleading."
>
> [...]
>
> "The more athletic, more acrobatic era of cheerleading is widely
> linked to the 1980s, when hundreds of high school gymnastics teams
> were dropped, partly because school districts grew weary of paying
> off injury insurance claims for the sport. Many gifted female
> gymnasts gravitated toward cheerleading and, with their ability and
> competitive nature, they soon pushed halftime routines far beyond
> shaking pompoms and waving banners."
>
> [...]
>
> "In 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Catastrophic
> Injury Insurance Program found that 25 percent of the money spent on
> claims for student-athletes since 1998 resulted from cheerleading.
> That made it second only to football. The ratio of cheerleaders to
> football players is about 12 to 100."
>
Yes.
It doesn't help that in proper gymnastics, there are all kinds of mats
all over the place to help cushion the impact of a fall, whereas in
cheerleading, they're cheering on whatever surface is available, NO mats
most of the time.
And I'm not sure if the girl in our town who fell off the float and was
run over its wheel and died of her injuries was on the float in the
capacity of a cheerleader, but if she was, there's one more. :(
(The parade was cancelled the next year....)
Julia
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
