“Cheer isn’t a sport,” exclaims junior Kayla Dean. “It’s not in the Olympics, so it’s not a sport.”
Dean is the only cheerleader I’ve met that would say such slanderous words. Although she doesn’t believe cheer to be a sport, Dean is a competitive cheerleader at Arkansas Cheer Dynamix. ACD is a new competitive cheer team, which was created by combining two rival squads, Ozark All Stars (OAS) and Airborne (AAC).
“We combined gyms, so no we are the best of both,” said Dean.
Combining the two rival gyms proved to be a successful endeavor.
“We perform better,” said Dean, “and our coaches are like, more into winning than they were last year.”
The desire to win has proved fruitful as well for ACD’s first competitive season, as they’ve already placed first in their exhibition match (which is merely a practice competition) Dec. 8.
The chronology of Dean’s cheer career started with taking gymnastics as a kid, and eventually quitting, then changing her mind about quitting. She wanted to do gymnastics again, but Dean didn’t have the intense amount of time and dedication that is required for competitive gymnastics.
“I didn’t want to do training six times a week, so I did cheer,” says Dean, “it’s less demanding.”
Clearly, the biweekly hour-and-a-half practices don’t consume Dean’s life like gymnastics would have. This leaves her more time to focus on school, work, and her social life. During the school year, Dean hardly has time for extra training outside of practice.
“In the summers, I do work outside of practice, but not during school,” she says.
Competitive cheer is considerably different from school cheer, which Dean chose not to participate in.
“I didn’t try out for school cheer because of the drama,” she said, “and it’s kind of high maintenance.”