15 out of 15 people found this review helpful.
Wow Your Crowd!
Date of Review: Sep 28, 2000
I am a high school cheerleader, and I've had to live with a lot of insults and rude comments from school mates on the topic of cheerleading being a sport, so when I saw this magazine in the sports section of the library, I just about jumped for joy. Not only because it showed how much the librarian thought of cheerleading, but because now the whole school could now read about cheerleading--as a sport.
American Cheerleader depicts the sports aspect of cheerleading in every article. It shows what hard work, determination, and stamina it takes to get your crowd up and cheering. Most people don't know how hard it is to be out in front of a crowd and be performing for three whole hours. Not only is it physically exhausting, but it's nerve-wracking too.
My favorite articles in this magazine are what I like to call the "show me" articles. These demonstrate dances, cheers, and stunts, all step by step. My squad has learned many new cheers and dances from this magazine, and often times we've figured out just what we were doing wrong when trying to hit a certain stunt.
The school spirit articles help tremendously as well. Giving pep assembly ideas, game crowd involvement activities, and school spirit promoters. My school has increased rapidly in school spirit since we started getting ideas from this magazine. Fund raisers presented in the magazine have been helpful too. We are now able to buy "special extras" for our squad, such as warm-ups, embroidered skirts, and matching outfits.
but the American Cheerleader's contributions to my squad are not the only great things about the magazine. As I was saying before, many people don't see cheerleading as a sport, and most people believe that all cheerleaders follow the stereotype of the "ditzy blonde," but anyone who reads this magazine will change their mind. Not only do the articles show how much of a sport cheerleading is, they also don't encourage frills, make-up, being pretty, etc. The magazine encourages enthusiasm and athleticism, full fledged.
I had some of my football playing friends tell me that they got bored and picked up American Cheerleader in the library, expecting to see a bunch of indecent girls and intending to mock them; but they told me they changed their minds after flipping through it, and now commend me on my efforts to rouse the crowd and show school spirit. This magazine is awesome in every aspect, and I highly recommend it to all cheerleaders and anyone else interested in promoting school spirit.