The Oregon Daily Emerald recently printed an opinion piece on the decision to add competitive cheerleading to the university. Doug Bonham raised some very good questions in his commentary. He criticized the athletic department for choosing to add a sport that had no established Pac-10 competitive structure, as well as no NCAA structure.
Yes, there is only one other program in the nation that has an NCAA competitive team, but over 215 college level teams competed at the National Cheerleading Associations National Championship – and that is not counting Pac-Ten schools who competed at USA Nationals and other conference schools at UCA nationals. In order to understand the profound competition already in existence, we must do a little more research into the collegiate competitions to understand how many schools have, do, and will compete against the U of O’s new team.
I applaud the athletic department for the same reason that Bonham puts them down, and I believe that their choice was a courageous effort to further what they realized is an incredibly fast growing sport. Additionally, with the leverage of the university it will be possible to encourage other universities to follow suit. I understand that some people would rather take the easy road and establish another women’s sport that will face fewer challenges to the university, but I commend the athletic director for opting for the road less traveled.
In response to the idea that they simply added this program because it had the lowest overhead, I have to laugh. If you have not competed in the sport, you do not know the cost of things-please do more research. The spring floor that the team will require to practice on is at the least $20,000, and that is a low end floor. Moreover, I believe the athletic department not only realizes that competitive cheerleading is indeed a sport, but also sees the opportunity to add a sport that could potentially generate revenue for the University.
Aside from football, men’s basketball, and hopefully the new baseball team, none of the other sports at the University bring in a lot of money. This is not a criticism of the other sports, because I believe that they are all important to the University. Cheerleading, believe it or not, has the potential to bring in a large amount of revenue for the athletic department. Cheerleaders are fanatical about their sport, and the support the team will get from local athletes and national supporters will be enormous. Also, the majority of people enjoy watching cheerleading competitions.
The University could easily fill Mac Court for a two day competition, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. The truth is, despite the fact that some people may not believe cheerleading is a sport that is their opinion. Every sport has people who support it and people who do not. No matter what you may believe, competitive cheerleading is here to stay.
Dan Cotton is a University alumnus