Competitive Cheerleading

Most people stereotype cheerleaders as people who cheer for other sporting teams victory's. This was defiantly the correct term for a cheerleader when cheerleading first originated, however over the years cheerleading has developed into something much different. Competitive cheerleading is where a full team forms a routine and performs at a competition against other teams in there level. Teams that achieve high scores from the judges win special bids to travel and perform there routine either inter-nationally or nationally. When your team becomes one of the very best at a top level there is the biggest cheerleading competition that takes place in America once a year and it is called cheerleading worlds. When performing at a competition there are two different types of routines you can perform they are a pom routine or a cheer (stunt) routine. Pom routines are very similar to normal dancing except it involves each cheerleader to have a pair of pom pom's and some compulsory moves which are a kick line and jump series. A cheer (stunt) routine is performed on a sprung floor and it involves stunt, tumbles, jumps and dance. However the old stereotypical idea of cheerleading still remains with some teams only cheering and supporting football and basketball teams, competitive cheerleading has defiantly become a sport in its own right.

Cheer Extreem Allstars

Cheer Extreme Allstars is a top leading American cheerleading company in North Carolina founded in 1994 by Betsy Smith and in now owned by her daughter and son-in-law, Courtney Smith Pope and Ben Pope. This company serves the largest cheerleading program in Carolina with a total of seven locations and over eight hundred athletes. They have a top national reputation as one of the premier programs in the south-east   They have about twenty six coaches including the 2009 USASF coach of the year Courtney Smith-Popen (owner), she is one of the best in the cheerleading industry. Almost all of their teams have been to cheerleading worlds and many of them have brought home gold. Their leading most known team is Senior Elite and they were the ranked world champions in 2010 and 2012, they also made an appearance on the reality television show Americas Got Talent.

Maddie Gardner

Mary Maddison Gardner know as Maddie Gardner is an internationally known All-star cheerleader born on the 13th of July 1993. She began her competitive cheerleading life at the age of seven at Cheer Extreme Allstars. Maddie has since attended many cheerleading worlds and is mostly known for her first ever performance at worlds succeeding in doing the "ball up 360 tick-tock stunt"( Maddie's 360 Ball Up Tick Tock). This stunt is one of the hardest to master. As for Maddie's career she has done extremely well, she has made numerous media appearances as a speaker, celebrity judge and stunt instructor. She was also the chosen face to be on the front of cheerleading magazines in December, and was also the single most featured for the magazine as evidence by large posters and banners with her face on booths around the USA. In 2011 CNN (American T.V. news program) followed her team around videoing there success and preparation leading up to worlds (CNN Video). Lastly Maddie launched a line for fancy face cosmetics which is a cheerleading make-up company, including a Maddie Loves Shimmer Collection. In 2012 Maddie Gardener had made her final decision to graduate, ending her all-star cheerleading career. She told to interviewers that she had applied to one university with a competitive cheerleading team, the University of Georgia, to study communications. Maddie chose to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is now studying journalism.

The History

Cheerleading is a physical activity and usually a competitive sport based on organised routines including a series of dance, jumps, stunts and tumbles. Cheerleading began in the early 1877 in the United States and remains primarily American with an estimated amount of 1.5 million participants but is increasingly spreading world wide becoming more known. Most of the population sees cheerleading as an all girls sport, however believe it or not cheerleading first began as an all-male sport with women only beginning to dominate the sport in 1907 during World War II. Johnny Campbell was the very first official cheerleader by the date 1898. He was a student at the University of Minnesota, and he managed a crowd by cheering at a football game, this was what made him the first official cheerleader. However today it is now estimated that 97% of cheerleading participants are female. Modern cheerleaders are generally either competitive, or they cheer for basketball or football games.