OK, so this isn’t actually about basketball. But being a former cheerleader, this kind of ticks me off: NCAA bans stunts for cheerleaders.
OK. Let’s say you play a game, like Football. Or Rugby. Or Basketball. You accept the fact that, as a player, you run the risk of injury. Possibly serious injury. People die or break their necks in sporting events all the time. It’s just a fact of life, and your number may be up as a statistic if you play.
Now imagine that, due to a few accidents, the NBA banned all touching of other players, even by accident. Imagine if college football was played with little belt flags rather than tackling, like we played in gym class in high school. Imagine banning Pole Vaults and High Jumps from track meets, field hockey with no sticks, gymnastics with no tumbling, fencing with rubber sabres, wrestling with no contact, or dance with no lifts.
That is like cheerleading with no tumbling, basket tosses, pyramids, or lifts. Great. Now college cheerleading is people just standing and shouting with megaphones. That’s excitement!
Dude, there was NOTHING like throwing Jennifer Wood thirty feet into the air to make the crowd scream their heads off. (It was Jen Wood, wasn’t it?) Pyramids are visually compelling and an integral part of the sport for decades. Spectacular lifts are part of cheerleading that makes it fun and challenging. And now you’re not allowed to do them without a pad underneath?
Yeah. That’s gonna happen. Let’s drag 2 foot thick mats out on the field to cheer on.
The main reason our co-ed squad was so popular and did so well, IMHO, is because the guys added grunt to the basket tosses and as bases for stunts. Fact is, guys are stronger, and we proved with with massive four-man tosses that could rocket a little 90-pound chick into the air like she’d been shot out of a cannon. And we could land her safely, every time. It’s called teamwork. It’s about knowing your limitations. It requires trust and coordination.
This is why it’s a sport, and not just people making idiots out of themselves shouting on the sidelines or from the stands. We have the Hogs for that.
I say, make cheerleaders sign disclaimers stating that they understand the risk. The risk of injury or death from cheerleading is lower than that of many contact sports. But, unfortunately, lawsuits rule the day, and a recently successful $2.1 million cheerleader injury lawsuit has made the NCAA uncomfortable enough to ban the very aspects of cheerleading that make it sportsmanlike, rather than just a sideshow: stunts.
— Matthew P. Barnson – – – – Thought for the moment: If our behavior is strict, we do not need fun!
Wrong Arena
Matt,
Cheerleaders can do all those things you lament for, tosses and such. It’s just they have to do them at cheerleading competitions, not at other athletic activities. Most sports have moved to this anyway.
When you only have 1 or 2 minutes to rush out onto the floor, do your routine, then run back so the game can take place, then you are nothing but a sideshow. That, and you’re rushed and not performing in the best environment for safety. Keep it safe there and then show your skills at the cheerleading competitions. where safety can be addressed.
My $.02 Weed
They ARE Keeping it Safe
Speaking as a professional stage fighter, I feel compelled to point out that two minutes is *plenty* of time to be safety conscious, if you know what you’re doing.
In two minutes time I’ve had to contend with any number of dodges, attacks, rolls, parries, and this is with bladed weapons whizzing by my face. But it’s safe, because we train for it. And I’ve only been doing this seriously for 5 years, while many cheerleaders start their tumbling training at age 4. These people put hours, days, years into training to do this so that they can do it in two minutes, and land it spot on.
It’s perfectly natural to initially assume that human limitations don’t stretch to doing safe basket tosses to a 30 foot altitude in 60 seconds time. I know I sure as hell couldn’t do it. But that doesn’t mean no one else could.
And just because you’re “nothing but a sideshow” doesn’t mean you can’t put on a hell of a spectacle. I mean, what kind of an ideal is that to instill in our kids? “You’re not the main event, so don’t stress yourself about doing anything really great. Mediocrity is fine for the second ring of the circus.”
And to be perfectly honest, a well executed gymnastic cheer routine is a damn sight more exciting than your average highschool game, IMHO.
For the record, Matt, I agree with you. This is a real shame.
Again
You missed the point.
The cheerleaders have a place to perform their stunts. They have competitions. How many times have you gone out and had a sword battle in the middle of a football game? Could you do it? Yes, I have no doubt. But why would you? If I want to see you do that, I go to the Hippodrome, not the Arena.
I’m not saying they can’t do it. That’s silly, they do it every day. What I’m saying is that they have a place to do it where the safety is maximized and it’s not a sideshow to the main event. I’d say you’re in the minority when it comes to watching the cheerleaders over the basketball game. But if you were at the cheerleading competiton, you’d be in the majority.
I know they work hard, but I just don’t think a 2-minute stretch in middle of a basketball game is worth the potential injuries. If they didn’t have another venue to perform their stunts and show off their hard work, then I’d feel differently.
My $.02 Weed
Adult entertainment
Okay, all these people are over 18, right? If so, they can play russian roulette for all I care–if they want to do a basket toss what’s the problem? Are they being coerced? The $2.1 million sounds like another classic example of ambulance chasing, especially if it was above and beyond medical expenses!
Ambulance Chasing
Yes, it seems the litigious society has struck again.
If it were a perfect world, where people actually realized bad things happened and it didn’t entitle you to millions of dollar in pain and suffering, then I could see the NCAA not giving a hoot about basket tosses. But once someone starts that trend, they have to back off. It’s the environment some lawyers have created in the country.
Waivers don’t really mean a thing, because they can we worked around by any lawyer who wants to run for that nice 33% share of the settlement.
I personally never watch the cheerleaders, unless one is cute, but I don’t care if they want to do their thing. But arguing from the NCAA’s standpoint, they’re not worth the risk of a lawsuit. ESPECIALLY when they have a venue to perform their sport in a safer environment.
What someone needs to do is ban frivolous lawsuits. THAT person would be a hero.
My $.02 Weed
Frivolous lawsuits
I agree with you, but who gets to decide which lawsuits are frivolous and which aren’t?
— Ben
OK
I’m stopping posting tomorrow…so I have a habit. So what? 😉
Well, first and foremost I’d institute tort reform by haing the loser pay the legal bills of the winner when it’s personal suits. Obviously it wouldn’t work when a person sues a corporation, but I think having that person have to pay court costs if the suit is decided against them would deter some frivolous lawsuits.
Second, there needs to be a cap on damages. Unless you can prove without a reasonable doubt it was intentful wrongdoing, you shouldn’t be taking home lots of money for an accident. If it’s Erin Brokovich where a company is trying to dump chemicals and hiding it, then the sky’s the limit. If McDonalds sells you hot coffee and you spill it like an idiot, sorry.
That’s what I’d do.
My $.02 Weed
Send in the clowns
In defense of McDonalds, the rest of the story: 1) Coffee gets cold over time. People who bought coffee at the drive-thru to drink at work complained (in surveys, I suppose) that it was cold. 2) McDonald’s wanted people to buy more coffee and be happy with it. Two options: use thicker foam in the cups or serve it too hot to touch. 3) Number crunching said, serve it too hot to touch. Profits are better that way. 4) One woman (one of 100’s of sufferers, actually, as McDonalds’ documents showed) spilled coffee in her seat, basically burning her genitals off. (3rd degree burns on 6% of her body.)
I’m not saying that coffee-buyers shouldn’t be wise, but it’s not quite as silly (in my opinion) as a lot of people make it sound.
Erin Brokovich, on the other hand, can rot in hell.
Yes
It’s also worth pointing out that McDonald’s had received over 700 complaints from people burned by their coffee in the previous ten years, some seriously. Also, the coffee was at 185 degrees, WELL above the temperature of the coffee of most other restaurants. And they’d been warned before that the coffee was hot enough to cause serious injury.
That’s the crux of the case really. One of the major foundations of tort law is that if a defendant knew or should have known about a reasonable danger to safety, but did nothing to correct it, that defendant is liable for negligence. I won’t bore you with the Learned Hand Theory of Negligence.
So yeah, carrying hot coffee in your lap while driving is not bright, but that coffee was WAY too hot and Mickey D’s should’ve known better.
— Ben
Plus
Extreme heat is the enemy of good coffee…
http://www.kimobean.com/OurCoffee/brewingtips.htm
An insulated cup would make for better coffee by keeping it at its optimum temp rather than scalding the flavor right out of the coffee in hopes the drinker would consume it at just the right time.
A better cup of coffee would have customers returning for the good coffee to justify the higher cost of insulated cups.
I read the Erin Brokovich
I read the Erin Brokovich article’s for and against. Without going too much into which I agree with, cause truthfully I don’t much care, :), I’d like to address the name of the blog: “Fumento.com – One step ahead of a changing world.”
Am I the only one who has an immediate wary reaction when I see headers like that?
My God, Daniel… we’re in
My God, Daniel… we’re in agreement! 🙂
Huzzah!!!! (sound of champagne popping)
Umm.. I love my wife..
But I can tell you, I spend a good amount of time watching the cheerleaders. A great deal of time. Maybe too much time.
I feel guilt now.
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