After the countless injuries and lack of sports scholarships, cheerleading will be finally considered a sport in

2017.

“Cheerleaders put in a lot of hard work and should be called athletes,” Birmingham’s Community Charter High School cheer coach Jasmine Lee said. “We work just as hard if not harder than all the other athletes.”

Since cheer was never officially considered a sport, there were no rules or regulations to ensure the wellbeing of the cheerleaders. The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) is now in charge of setting up all the guidelines for cheer, like all other safety procedures and standards other sports have.

Although there haven’t been any official guidelines and regulations up to this point, cheer coaches make their own sets of rules to try and be as safe as possible.

“I am satisfied with the safety I feel safe enough,” varsity cheerleader Valeria Sanchez said. “For example, she doesn’t let us do stunt tricks if she’s not present no matter who it is, or if we want to try a tumbling trick we can’t do it unless we let her know and have her assist us.”

After decades of cheerleaders being seen as plain entertainers and everything but the dedicated athletes they are, they will finally be getting their well deserved recognition the cheerleaders and coach state to deserve.

“I think cheerleaders have deserved this title since the day cheer was invented. We throw people in the air, we twist our bodies like no one else can, we do gymnastics and flips that are incredible,” Lee said. “We deserve this.”