Let's face it: when people think of a cheerleader, they automatically jump to the typical movie stereotypes of dramatic, dumb, trashy blondes who hang out at their “practices” after school to gossip about everyone. I’ve been cheering for seven years and it still astounds me to hear people use these untrue categorizations on myself and my fellow teammates.

Cheering is so much more than a social group, and believe it or not, we actually practice at our practices instead of sitting around and gossiping. Cheer is so much hard work and effort that we don’t have time for that sort of nonsense. We perform spotless routines and execute cheers, jumps, and stunts that require extreme precision and practice; we don’t get to that point unless we’re actually putting in some effort.

If you’ve ever watched any reality TV shows such as Cheer Perfection or Cheerleader Nation, it’s obvious that these girls are extreme athletes who put in tons of work and effort to achieve their goals. Some teams attend practices filled with extensive and strenuous exercises, tumbling, stunting, and conditioning for more than ten hours each week. The six packs and ripped muscles they have show for all of this hard work.

The worst insult for a cheerleader is when someone tells them that “cheer isn’t a sport.” While cheer is not considered an “official” sport by a federal ruling, it still meets all parts of the definition. We have physical practices that involve propelling a mass through space and overcoming the resistance of mass. We also participate in local, regional, and national competitions involving explicit rules and regulations. I remember the football players back in high school who would make fun of us for cheering, but once we invited them to come experience one of our practices, they admitted that it was just as difficult (and included more extensive exercising) as football! Many football players at the collegiate level will cheer during their off-season to maintain the same levels of athletically intensive exercise as they did during the season.

The stereotype that cheerleaders are dumb has always floored me. When cheering for schools, especially at the college level, grades play a major role. If you start lagging in class, you can be suspended or even removed from the team. In high school, numerous girls on my team graduated in the top ten of their class each year, and many of my collegiate teammates have stellar academic records as well. Even some coaches of competition teams require report cards or subsequent grade reports to be submitted.

I remember my first week of college when my Residential Advisor told me that she had cringed when she first saw that she had cheerleaders living on her floor, and was so surprised when she found out what normal and nice people we were. My roommate had the same mindset, confessing to me in our second week of living together that when she discovered that I cheered, she had been so nervous that she was going to be stuck living with a stuck-up snob. What makes people have such negative stereotypes of cheerleaders?

I don’t know if it’s from movies or other media sources, but people everywhere seem to have this pre-conceptualized idea that all cheerleaders fit in this little “box” of snobby, gossipy, sleazy girls who serve no function other than to cause drama. In the past, I’ve been cautious and afraid to let people know that I cheer because I feel like they always jump to these automatic stigmatizations. We work very hard, just as hard as any other sport, so what makes us any different than them? Instead of these automatic characterizations, let’s forget about what our preconceived ideas of cheerleaders are and get to know them as individual people. Who knows, you may be surprised at who they really are.