Saturday, January 27, 2007

Cheering at School Sports Events is Becoming Strictly Regulated

Fun not allowed. What next?

"WIAA policy states that only cheers supporting one's own team are permitted - no put-downs, no innuendos. Every BHS game has a contest manager, often an administrator, to reel in a rowdy crowd and put a damper on inappropriate cheers, signs or attire.....

"It's unfortunate that some kids who legitimately want to cheer for their team are stuck in the middle of it," said School Board President Kevin Vodak. "But the bottom line to us was that the Badger Conference approves only positive cheers for your team. Maybe the original intent was to skirt the rules, to have some fun, but the hidden meaning was well known among students and it's gotten out of hand."

Head boys basketball coach Tom Steinhorst said a little old-fashioned "De-fense, de-fense" can go a long way. "(Student fans) do what they feel is cute and funny, and cute and funny aren't what we're looking for. We're looking for fire up, loud, positive, a great atmosphere," he said. "A lot of these cheers have nothing to do with our team; they're nonsense." ....

The very people assigned to riling up the crowd at the basketball games - the cheerleaders - are having trouble making headway with a sometimes rowdy student section. "We often don't get a lot of participation from the crowd at all," said Cheer Squad advisor Teri Fichter.....

"The cheers our squads do are politically correct," she said. "The ones (the fans) come up with are a little more risky."

Source

Good to see that the kids are resisting being dictated to. School political correctness has the saving grace of being BORING -- so that actually discredits it among kids.

Taranto has more.

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