Cheerleaders bring back stunting

BY DANIELA RAYMOND Opinion Editor

Cheerleading whether at the sport or club level is an interactive sport. Audiences love to see cheerleaders launched into the air, performing intricate routines and amazing flips, all while landing safely in each other’s arms. While stunts are always visually engaging and exciting, it is also essential that they go safely.

When all goes well, the airborne cheerleader, known as the flier, is caught by other cheerleaders, but not always.

Stunting on the SUNY Plattsburgh cheer team was placed on pause due to a lack of insurance policy. Sports team insurance protects students, coaches and the athletic department. Typically including a combination of risk protections that ensures teams are participating in activities safely.

In previous years, when stunting was allowed, the team was mostly comprised of cheerleaders with years of experience. During the pandemic, the team continued to practice through Zoom calls and many of them kept their spirits high, connecting with each other when and however they could.

Losing the wow factor of stunting on the cheer team was detrimental to their efforts to perform.

When sports resumed after quarantine, the team was still not allowed to stunt due to miscommunication with sports and recreation offices not understanding the sport.

In 2021, the team held its first tryouts after returning to campus and while 30 to 50 girls tried out and many of them made the team, upon learning that there was no stunting they later quit.

The lack of stunting that year would leave the cheer team ending the season with closer to 15 girls.

Kaylyn Tierney, an alumna cheerleader, spent five years on the team from 2016 to 2021. She led the team as a captain and returned as an assistant coach and has been volunteering to help the cheer team in the past three years.

Tierney said, “I’ve been around for eight years, and this is the first tryout where we’ve never had enough girls to make cuts.”

When most people hear cheerleading, you expect to see