Rah, Rah For The N&O's Leah Friedman

The nerve of a newspaper reporter who wants me to name my sources! Especially in an email inquiry and request. Especially from a reporter from The News & Observer, the local king of not revealing sources for fear of not getting more information from those who kiss and tell.

It was last Friday at 3:27 p.m. when the email hit my “Inbox” of Outlook. It was from Leah Friedman, who also goes by the pen-name, The Triangle Troubleshooter, though her columns are signed, and many times she clarifies situations, while many times she actually helps a person in need of resolution. But, she’s also a reporter, assigned to various topics, sometimes news, sometimes, well, fluff.

The email was about the…well…here it is: My name is Leah Friedman, and I'm a reporter with the News & Observer. I am writing a story about the recent cheerleading court decision out of Connecticut, and I've been told you blogged about it. I'm wondering if you know anyone involved with NCSU athletics who agrees with this decision.

I started to answer in writing, to tell her, yes I do know of some directly and indirectly connected with the NC State University Department of Athletics who are on the side of United States District Judge Stephan Underhill who ruled for purposes of reporting under Title IX that Cheerleading is not a sport. But instead of writing, I decided to call her, to talk handset to handset. The conversation was short and pleasant and resulted in just what I thought.

“What? Are you going to rehash the story (which ran in The News & Observer, Wednesday, July 22)?” I asked.

“Oh, we never rehash stories,” she said which made me laugh. She said she was assigned to write a story from the local angle, and when she submitted her article, it had no quotes from anyone who favored the Judge. Initially, her editor rejected the story and wanted more. She said, in so many words that it would be nice to have someone at NC State, someone in the Athletics Department, who agrees with the decision. “So, I’m asking around. I was told you blogged about it and may know someone there who would talk with me,” she said.

My laugh grew louder, though only inside, not outwardly so she could hear. Here was a reporter asking someone to name a source. I failed to ask her if she would ever do the same for me in return, but I knew the answer would be negative. Newspapers and their reporters think they have the only right to sources. They think they are entitled to know more than everyone else, to get to sources and never tell who those informants are. Hell, reporters will rot in jail before telling the courts, even if it means by revealing a name or two a case could be won and a criminal would be brought to justice. So I knew that if I did her a favor and let her create a little more controversy about NC State, there’s little reason to think that if I needed a name later in life she would agree to return the favor.

So, she had no one for her rehash of the subject, at least from inside the NCSU Athletics Department, who agreed with the Judge, but she found plenty of people, obvious people, who disagreed with the Judge who wrote: “Competitive cheer may, some time in the future, qualify as a sport under Title IX. Today, however, the activity is still too underdeveloped and disorganized to be treated as offering genuine varsity athletic participation opportunities for students.”

Yes, I blogged about it a few days ago, the day after the ruling, the same day the story ran in The N&O which would have been the opportune time for The N&O to write a sidebar with a local flavor. In my blog, I noted that in this case, the Judge was upset at Quinnipiac College for substituting the “competitive cheer” squad of 24 girls for a nine-member girls’ volleyball team all in the name of meeting Title IX requirements. It was one of the many ways Quinnipiac was cooking the books, lying to the feds to make sure it was in compliance with equal opportunity for all. It was using, and still wants to use, the cheerleaders to make quota, and for that the cheerleaders should be insulted.

So, Ms. Friedman took off locally, asking the question: Is cheerleading a sport. As written in her rehash of the subject in The N&O, she got answers from:
—Harold Trammel, the Wolfpack’s cheerleading coach: “If you look at what we do, it's hard not to categorize us as a sport. It takes a lot of athletic ability to do what we do.” No doubt.
—Kaylee Allen, a current member of the State squad who said, in pointing out how hard they work on their “game” but whose reasoning is not very deep in thought: “We compete to win a title, and all other sports compete for a title as well.” Duh!
—Whitney Rigsbee, a former Appalachian State cheerleader who was equally deep: "We are very organized. We have coaches and trainers.” Double duh!

In reality, many university and college athletics departments and high schools treat cheerleading as a sport, a team sponsored by the department with coaches and trainers. And, in reality for liability reasons, it’s good to give the Pep Squad some organization, leadership and medical attention. I recall when I was in college we had well-balanced cheerleading squad of some but not all good looking woman and most out of shape men who tossed back a beer or two prior to the football and basketball games. They all did their flips and built funny off-balanced pyramids. But at one basketball game, during halftime, the squad decided to put on a show that should have been reserved for the professionals: The Wolfpack gymnastics team. In the midst of the tosses and tumbles, one of the men got a little aggressive with his approach and when he leaped over a small human mass, he overshot the padding laid out on the Reynolds Coliseum floor and landed on his mouth, chipping a tooth or two. Direction for him was quick. I believe it was off the squad.

I agree today’s cheerleaders work hard, are in shape, are organized, compete for trophies, and are much different than the cheerleaders of years gone by. But cheerleading as a sport still doesn’t fit with me. It’s an ancillary part of college athletics, not a primary sport for competition sake or for Title IX reporting. And, I do know people in several college athletics departments, not just NC State, who agree with me and with Judge Underhill.

But there’s no way whatsoever that I’ll share those names, those sources with Lead Friedman who did a fair job of rehashing a story that was at least 10 days old. I hated to rehash it here today, but at least I came up with a different angle, thanks to that email request for my sources who agree with me. Write me again.

Rah-Rah For Federal Judge Stephan Underhill

Excuse my huge ear to ear grin and my exuberance today, but I’m sending kudos and possibly several bouquets of flowers to United States District Court Judge Stephan Underhill who yesterday ruled what I and many others have been saying for years: Cheerleading is NOT a sport, at least it’s not an official sport as far as colleges using it to meet Title IX gender-equity requirements, those of the 1972 federal law that commands equal opportunities for men and women in athletics.

The ruling came out of a court case he heard in Connecticut involving Quinnipiac University—the same school that offers political polling results used by media and candidates—which had shelved its women’s volleyball team for budgetary reasons (isn’t that always the case) and replaced it with a cheerleading squad involved in competition, not a team just standing on sidelines of football and basketball games and other athletics events and say “Rah! Rah!” The story at Quinnipiac is bigger than just the Cheer Squad. It seems the University has been cooking the books with the Title IX requirements. More on that later, but a now a local-interest interlude:

In the Atlantic Coast Conference, three schools list Competitive Cheerleading on their websites: Virginia Tech is one of the three. The other two are: Maryland and NC State. Now we may know one of the reasons by Debbie Yow to want to move from being Athletics Director at Maryland to being Athletics Director at NC State: Competitive Cheerleading. And, this might have been the reason Chancellor Randy Woodson wanted Yow to come to Raleigh. While Purdue doesn’t have a competitive cheer squad, maybe he wanted to make sure the new AD wanted to keep it at State. It all makes sense now.

At Quinnipiac, it was announced in 2009 that the women’s volleyball team would be dropped for budgetary reasons and be replaced with the competitive cheer team. You should check out the Cheer Squad section of the Quinnipiac Bobcats website: 30 players (all women) and three fulltime coaches (all women). Over at the Volleyball page: nine players (all women); one paid coach (a woman) and one volunteer coach (a man). Amazing stuff, or maybe not.

It appears the school wants to make the move—eliminating nine and adding 30 (or more—to keep it in compliance with Title IX. But the Judge will have nothing to do with that. In his ruling, he wrote: “Competitive cheer may, sometime in the future, qualify as a sport under Title IX. Today, however, the activity is still too underdeveloped and disorganized to be treated as offering genuine varsity athletic participation opportunities for students.” He instructed the school to report back within 60 days with a plan to keep the volleyball team—members of which who had sued the school over the announced dropping of the sport—and comply with Title IX rules.

Quinnipiac officials responded by saying that instead of continuing the volleyball program, it would start a women’s rugby team. That’s probably because it needs bodies—female bodies—and if 30 women cheerleaders are eliminated as varsity competitors, the numbers from a rugby team would offset the differential. The Judge had good reason to rule in favor of the volleyball players and against the school. Title IX says, according to an Associated Press account of this case, “An activity can be considered a sport under Title IX if it meets specific criteria. It must have coaches, practices, competitions during a defined season and a governing organization. The activity also must have competition as its primary goal - not merely the support of other athletic teams.”

The trial, more importantly, also revealed how Quinnipiac has been cooking the books in the gender equity area. The Judge found something that’s common at all colleges and universities in reporting Title IX facts and figures: participation instead of athletes. For instance, at Quinnipiac, there’s a men’s cross country team and there are cross country, indoor track and outdoor track for women. When one female athlete participates in all three team sports, she’s counted as three different participants. At NC State, it’s likely that Russell Wilson, football quarterback and multi-purpose baseball player, is counted twice. And, any person on any team is counted. So, even at NC State, a women’s cross country runner is counted there as well as on the indoor and outdoor track teams, but then so are the duplicate men.

But, wait, there’s more to the evil doings at Quinnipiac that trusted name in political polling. The book-cooking gets a little deeper. For instance, the Judge discovered the baseball and men’s lacrosse teams were dropping names from the rosters for reporting purposes in the fall and then adding team members to the roster in the spring for the season. This reduces male participants. At the same time, names were added to the softball team for reporting purposes and them eliminating them for the season. Now that’s integrity.

While the headline in this matter is that a Federal Judge says cheerleading is NOT a sport, and while I sing praises for this opinion, one that I’ve had all along no matter how many national cheerleading titles NC State has won—and by the way, NC State does not report cheerleading for Title IX purposes and, anyway, there are equal number of men and women on the squad and because NC State feels cheerleading does not fall into the Title IX guidelines for being considered a sport—the real winner in this could be women’s athletics and female athletes. If Judge Underhill’s ruling stands, all colleges and universities and probably high schools will have to review how the numbers are counted, resulting in an increase for the women.

And, as far as the headline, I’ll say it again: It thrills me to no end for a federal judge to say that cheerleading is not a sport, no matter how hard they work to be in shape and do all those fancy twists, turns and flips. If it is, then remove them from the sidelines at football and basketball games and create a schedule of competition with other cheerleading squads from other universities. Train and hire rules officials and judges who do not host summer camps to prevent bias in point-giving. In other words, if cheerleading is to be a sport along the lines of football, basketball, tennis, golf, etc., then treat it the same. In all the years I been watching college sports, I have never seen a men’s or women’s tennis team along the sidelines at NC State’s Carter-Finley Stadium leading the fans in rah-rahing. Why is the competitive cheerleading squad doing that?

A problem I see to making cheerleading a full-fledged sport: Who will stand along those sidelines cheering on the cheerleaders? And, if a squad is chosen for that, then one day, it too will want varsity status. It just doesn’t end, does it? Anyway, Rah-Rah for Judge Underhill!