Football is known for its big hits. While the gladiatorial style of play has helped fuel football’s popularity, it has also been the cause of numerous head injuries resulting in permanent damage. Now, football programs from the high school level to the NFL are under pressure to reduce the number of concussions suffered by their players. But football is not alone. As cheerleaders put on increasingly intricate performances requiring both individual athleticism and coordinated team effort, more and more cheerleaders are getting hurt. Likewise, cheerleading programs are now being pressed to change their rules to reduce injuries. So who gets hurt more? We set out to find the answer in data and making the comparison was not necessarily easy. Cheerleading squads are often organized as intramural sports rather than athletic programs sanctioned by a governing body, which means cheerleading data is often incomplete or relies on small samples. After digging around, however, we were able to find statistics for the 2011-2012 season with help from the National Federation of State High School Associations, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and National Children’s Hospital Center for Injury Research and Policy. Take a look for yourself:
What’s interesting is how the conversation has drifted in the last decade. If you ask a room of parents what they’re more worried about—the kid playing linebacker or the one being tossed twenty feet in the air—you’ll get some strong opinions, and maybe a sideways glance or two. These days, you don’t have to look far to find a heated discussion on social media about how both football and cheerleading come with their own set of risks that aren’t always obvious until someone gets hurt. While football injuries might spike under the Friday night lights, cheer injuries crop up on the sidelines and, increasingly, during competitive stunts, sometimes away from the crowd entirely.
And it’s not just the physical toll that stands out. There’s a mental side to getting back up after a hard fall—both teams and individuals have to figure out what “safe enough” actually means. Some coaches are still figuring out how to balance the drive for tougher routines or harder hits with the reality that, well, young bodies don’t always bounce back like people think. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that more schools seem willing to adjust, but the arguments about how much safety is too much—or not enough—are probably going to stick around.
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