Posted on 09/01/2012 11:43:01 AM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
The start of football season prompted me to visit several sports websites to get an idea of how the putative “experts”expect my favorite college and NFL teams to fare this year.
(Not particularly well).
What struck me is that almost every one of the sites I visited has some sort of photo gallery of cheerleaders, often ranking them not on how well the squads perform their sideline routines, but how “hot” they are.
If that is what cheerleading has come to for many, if not most, male football fans – ogling the young women between plays on the gridiron field – that raises the question:
Can a young woman be, at once, a faithful Christian and a cheerleader?
Ariann Denison believes so.
She was a Miami Dolphins cheerleader from 2005 to 2009, before becoming the squad’s choreographer. She also owns a dance studio that not only offers classes in ballet, jazz, tap, lyrical and “pro cheer,” but also a liturgical class that combines dance with Christian music.
Ariann says that her background as an NFL cheerleader and choregrapher, and her position as owner of a successful dance studio, has given her the opportunity to share the Gospel with young women who may think that cheerleading and following the Lord are mutually exclusive.
“My testimony shocks them,” she told The Good News, a Christian newspaper. “I tell the older girls that I didn’t have my first drink until I was 25. I never went to a club in college. And I kept myself pure until marriage.”
And like the dance students taking Ariann’s “pro cheer” class, there are many young women throughout the country who aspire to be cheerleaders at the high school, college or even professional level, but who refuse to compromise their Christian values.
Indeed, there are more than 500 Christian cheerleading camps and clinics around the country. The girls that attend the camps learn all the yells, the stunts, the acrobatics, the dances that are taught at secular camps.
The difference is that Christian cheerleaders are not about wearing skimpy costumes and performing bump-and-grind dance moves that are more appropriate at a strip club than on a football sideline.
Christian cheerleaders, as Ariann Denison attests, are not offended by male sports fans who think them “hot.” But those young women know they are set apart not by what can be seen on the outside by their male admirers, but what God can see on the inside.
I totally agree about small town advantages.
Unfortunately there are pockets of pure moonbattery in VA - but thankfully I don’t live in one. I live on the coast, up by the Maryland stateline, and most of this region, including that part of Maryland, is pretty conservative. The resort towns of both states - not so much - but we need the tourism money and we still out number the transplants (of which I am one-LOL!)
Yes, it is, and I’m sorry you don’t have the same. However, you made a broadbrush comment and didn’t qualify it and that is why I commented.
Girls/ladies cheering for boys/men - what a concept! They would make great mothers to boys - celebrating their masculinity and girls their femininity.
The girls know it, you don’t see any 200 lb cheerleaders .Janet Reno never led a Cheer. Neither did Napolitano, or Hillary.
What makes you think they would ever cheer for men? It's not the weight but the mindset.
Will your view change ...T&A is what cheerleaders are ..once men starting cheering for men? Would that be more to your liking and understanding? Or do you want to eliminate any cheering/encouraging all together?
I think I’m right and you’re lucky, so far.
the one on the right . . . yep !
And speaking of gutter, it's from you since you brought it up and that follows your comment Should they be judged on their hotness
A little humor for you all that really doesn’t answer or address the question (very funny spoof on cheerleaders): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDoU71zwpXI
I know! Our liberal stronghold is Memphis.
My daughter was doing gymnastics on her own until old enough to go for training. Then became a ‘mascot’ with the cheerleaders in the local HS when in the 2nd grade. They were amazed at what she could do that made their team shine! Then became a cheerleader in HS and went to gymnastic camp one summer. That was many years ago. Now she’s a scientist. However, she was always athletic. All this talk about one can’t be a Christian and a cheerleader is laughable! Being a Christian, alone is plenty to cheer about!
I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t see it changing here any time soon. The uniforms the cheerleaders wore in both my elementary and high school schools (both Catholic and HS was all girls) in the ‘70s were more risque than what the girls (or boys) on the cheer and booster squads wear here and now.
You sure write a lot of essays revolving around some aspect or another of sex. Does it get you a lot of hits on your blog?
Your comments totally missed the point and were out of context. The article, and the OP, were looking at this from the perspective of the struggles of a Christian girl struggling with what appeared to be conflicts. My post was simply in that vein. You decided to hide behind your screen name and pick a fight that is not there. Your comment was from the perspective of what others thought from the outside, which has zip, zero, nada to do with my comment, the article, or the OP’s perspective. In other words, you were off base, off subject and simply sniping for the purpose of sniping. I frankly enjoy looking at cheerleaders and have done so today on TV with college football. But this article was not from that perspective. Sorry that was beyond your grasp.
And I suspect those are the issues the girl in the article is struggling with. Frankly, I think its safe to say that many in this industry try and embellish all of those very attributes. You know they do, and people like it. I like it. Thus, the struggle.
Are you sure what you describe is the cheerleading team outfit? Or maybe something related? Do they do cartwheels/ jumps/pyramid, etc. at the games in jeans? That doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever seen on any cheerleading squad.
“I am not arguing that some high schools and colleges who have their cheerleaders dress up like Vegas show girls....”
Since you referenced Vegas, I have to say I was pretty impressed with the UNLV cheerleders and Rebel Girls. They performed at my daughter’s UNLV orientation. Their stamina, athleticism and choreography were really impressive. They were true athletes. Since I’m a women, I had no “ogle” factor. I guess it’s between them and God. I know I put on a bathing suit that covers slightly less and swim in the summer, but I’ve never felt I should buy a burkini. But then, the cheerleaders I saw growing up were pretty conservative. It was about the athletics, encouraging fans to cheer on the team, not T&A.
No. It is in reality, your world that is very small. I really feel sorry for you, and “bless your heart” BTW; living in such a narrow and hate filled world where you go out of your way to demonize all highshcool cheerleaders as sluts and all high school athletes as drug addicts.
Can a essayist who is Christian, who is socially conservative, avoid subjects related to sex?
And if, as you suggest, my object is to generate blog hits, why would I post my “essays” in full, rather than excerpting them?
Good comic relief!
That’s just another way of saying if women didn’t have a hoo-ha, most men would have no use for them.
There is not much left to imagine in the uniforms of cheerleaders.
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