The Risks of Cheerleading: What You Should Know

Everybody loves a cheerleader; they hype the main game and get the crowd roaring. However, cheerleading has evolved from a simple cheer routine to a complex sport of its own these days — with fierce athletic competitions between teams.

What if your child decides that they want to becomes a cheerleader? What should you know about the sport before you consider letting your child join? If there is the potential for your child to be injured? What do you need to know about liability?

The Hazards of Cheerleading

From age five through college ages, cheerleading is a very dangerous sport. In fact, some reports consider it the most dangerous sport for female students period, even more so than gymnastics. Roughly 65% of all disabling or fatal sports injuries among high school-aged girls now come from cheerleading.

Among college-aged women, the percentage of catastrophic injuries attributed to cheerleading spikes to more than 66%. Some experts even believe that the true number of cheerleading injuries is actually higher. The only sport more dangerous than cheerleading to a student's health is football.

Research suggests that one reason for this unreasonably high number of serious injuries from cheerleading may be because of the gymnastic-like stunts now common in cheerleading routines. A related reason may be the fact that the chance for serious injuries increases when incompetent coaches teach complicated routines they don't have the experience or training to direct.

The Legalities of Cheerleading injuries

Usually, if a student engages in a dangerous physical activity, they assume a certain risk of injury. Essentially, the law acknowledges that when a sport is dangerous, there will sometimes be injuries that are not really anyone's fault. In other words, an accident does not always equal negligence.

If the accident isn't the result of negligence, typically your own insurance will pay for at least part of the medical fees. If it happens on school grounds, the school may be responsible for up to $1,000 in medical fees.

It's important to understand, however, that the courts have begun to impose a much stricter liability on the schools over recent years in response to the increased danger of cheerleading stunts. Now that many areas have reclassified cheerleading as a sport, the students doing the cheers are entitled to all the same safeguards as any other student-athletes.

This means that when an accident happens, it's important to look into whether or not the accident is a result of negligence. An accident attorney should question whether or not the accident could have been avoided:

• If the school carefully checked into the coach's history to see if there were previous accidents where he or she worked
  
• If the coach was orchestrating stunts that were beyond his or her skill to teach and his or her cheerleaders to perform
  
• Whether or not the student-athletes and their parents were adequately warned of the dangers of cheerleading stunts
  
• Whether or not the stunts were performed using appropriate safety equipment, particularly during the training phase
  

In addition, if the injury done to a fallen cheerleader could have been mitigated by a better planned and more carefully-handled emergency-response protocol, that could also lead to a negligence claim.

In Conclusion

Cheerleading has evolved into a fully-fledged sport that requires a combination of gymnastic ability, competitive spirit, and athletic skill — but it can also be lethal or end in a catastrophic injury. Anyone thinking of allowing a child to join a cheerleading team should check into the team, the coach, and the school carefully. Find out if the coach has the requisite training to be coaching the type of cheers the students are doing.

If your child is seriously injured, don't assume that the school is free of liability. If negligence was involved, you may have a viable claim. Contact our lawyers at Wegner & Associates to discuss your situation.