Administrators and coaches at East High School in Denver, CO, have been put on leave for making their cheerleading girls practice painful splits. The horrifying video was released by local media, and it shows one cheerleader crying "please stop" as they seemingly force her to do the move. The American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators and USA Cheer released a joint statement saying they don't "condone the coach's actions, and reject them to the fullest extent. Stretching should never be taken to the level of causing pain."
Education, politics, and anything else that catches my attention.
Saturday, August 26, 2017
What Kind Of Sick Crap Is This?
Who could possibly have thought this was reasonable?
The last update about this story is that the coach has been fired.
ReplyDeleteAnother tragic thing about this. The mother brought the problem to the school in June. It wasn't until the local media got involved that the school administrators acted.
Can you imagine the uproar if the girl was African-American and white kids were holding her down?
ReplyDeleteI would prefer not to imagine that!
ReplyDeleteMy daughter is a dancer. She has a BFA in Dance. As part of that she had to take six hours of Anatomy and Physiology. Her school's department taught that the body must be trained to do extreme moves and that force is dangerous, even debilitating. Moves like jumpsplits are no longer taught in good Dance programs because of the chance of injury. Only in competition dance or competitive cheerleading is this exaggerated move still used. Having been a Dance director for several years before she left to become a banker (and yes she's very good at that too!)she was constantly battling against parents and drill team directors who had never actually done a full college BFA in Dance and didn't understand issues like why a nine year old can't dance en pointe or why it should take time to "acquire" splits in performance. All competitive teams and TV shows care about is the appearance. If you'll look those reality shows are far more about posing and jumps than fluid movement. I showed my daughter the film and she said the guy should be brought up on abuse charges.
ReplyDeleteIANAL, but that appears to be a clear-cut case of third-degree assault, a class 1 misdemeanor. Reference: Colorado Revised Statutes 18-3-204. http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/colorado?app=00075&view=full&interface=1&docinfo=off&searchtype=get&search=C.R.S.+18-3-204
ReplyDelete