By Rachel Bachman, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.
April 24--Gone is the glitter. Gone are the pompoms, megaphones and signs. And, in the most striking sign of evolution from an activity still largely known for titillation: no skirts.
Athletes on the team that arrived at the University of Oregon four years ago as competitive cheerleading wear the kind of compression-style jerseys you'd see at a football workout and shorts you'd see in competitive volleyball. The gear, down to the covered midriffs, is by design.
With what's now called acrobatics and tumbling inching toward acceptance as an NCAA sport, the major battle ahead is over the sport's image. And no one has done more to shape it than Oregon, whose Ducks this month won the inaugural championship of the National Collegiate Acrobatics and Tumbling Association at Matthew Knight Arena.
As Oregon athletic administrator Renee Baumgartner has helped create the NCATA and earn the endorsement of USA Gymnastics, coach Felecia Mulkey has worked to craft a meet format, retool the sport's scoring system and overhaul its look.
On May 3, lawyers for the NCATA and competing organization USA Cheer will square off at the NCAA Gender Equity Forum in Bethesda, Md. The debate could go a long way in determining which version of the sport gains the approval of college sports' governing body. If the NCATA does, history might prove Mulkey to be acrobatics and tumbling's James Naismith.
A few years ago Mulkey used idle time on airplanes to play word association. She would say "competitive cheer" and ask people what came to mind.
"Laker Girls," they would say, or "Dallas Cowboys."
The Ducks were not going for go-go boots, so they changed their name to "team stunts and gymnastics."
Duo Basket Toss_a&tnationalmaryland20110409_7109 Eric Evans.JPGEric EvansThe Ducks compete in the basket toss event at the NCATA championship earlier this month at Matthew Knight Arena. A second change came last fall when USA Gymnastics, the body that oversees and elevates competitors to the Olympics, agreed to sanction the NCATA's meets -- a huge boost toward legitimacy. To distinguish it from gymnastics' array of disciplines, Oregon's team became "acrobatics and tumbling." Next fall the other five NCATA programs, and newcomer Kennesaw State in Georgia, also will adopt the name.
The word choice is no small matter. After last year's legal ruling on Quinnipiac's clumsy dumping of its volleyball program in favor of competitive cheer, a headline in The Economist taunted: "A federal judge rules that leaping sexily about is not a sport."
Mulkey knew that to differentiate her sport from sideline rooters -- the Ducks compete in front of judges and never root at games -- it had to divorce itself not just from its old name but also from its dime-store glamour.
"I personally am from an athletic family, so when I came from gymnastics to competitive cheer, my family was like, 'What are you doing?'" Mulkey said. "My entire life, that overshadowed it."
When she sat down with Nike designers not long after her hiring at Oregon in 2008, she blanched at their proposed uniform.
"If we had the option," she recalled telling them, "I would rather not wear a cheerleading outfit."
Athletes on Mulkey's team are welcome to wear bows in their hair or employ other feminine flourishes, but she emphasizes that they will not be judged by their appearance. Mulkey's guidelines -- including no skirts or bare midriffs -- became NCATA rules. The change is transforming the sport.
Bill Seely wants to retain cheerleading's roots even a competition-only format. The executive director of USA Cheer, Seely works within Varsity Brands, the national leader in cheerleading uniforms and championships.
"We have no interest in gymnastics," Seely said. "It was born out of cheer. It came out of cheer."
In the past year, USA Cheer and the NCATA have gone from talking about joining forces to competing for ownership of the sport. A week after the NCATA announced its partnership with USA Gymnastics, USA Cheer launched an event called "stunt," a discipline that strikingly resembles acrobatics and tumbling. USA Cheer held its inaugural stunt national championship on the second weekend in April, the same as NCATA's championship.
Seely acknowledged paying teams to participate in stunt this year, but said NCATA did the same. Mulkey responded that the only money passing between NCATA members is home teams paying visiting teams' travel costs, a common practice across NCAA sports. The back-and-forth heats up as the stakes rise.
"It's kind of humorous," Mulkey said. "It's kind of like a John Grisham novel meets 'Bring it On.'"
Both organizations are aiming for "emerging sport" status from the NCAA. The NCATA has applied and continues to add material to its application, and USA Cheer plans to apply in May, Seely said.
The distinction helps move a sport toward NCAA championship status and each team toward counting its scholarships under a federal gender-equity law. Title IX requires equal opportunities for girls and women at federally funded schools, and major-college football's allotment of 85 scholarships per team (63 for second-tier Division I) leaves many schools perpetually searching for women's sports to balance their offerings.
Seely says that 22 teams participated in stunt this year, which could jump to "40 or 50" by next fall, including squads from the Pacific-10, Big 12 and Southeastern Conferences. But most of those teams are run as clubs, not out of the athletic department as NCATA teams are, and many cheer at games. Stunt teams would have to leave the sideline in to be recognized as an NCAA sport, Seely acknowledged.
Though doubts linger among the public and some women's sports advocates about a sport born out of cheerleading, it seems likely that some version will succeed. Participation at the high school level in competitive cheer has passed 123,000, and Seely said that number is closer to 800,000 including private clubs. The question is who will run it at the college level.
"We want it to be within the cheerleading world," Seely said. "That's what's most important to us. Ultimately, when the NCAA takes it over, it's an NCAA sport."
Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics, confirmed the opposite perspective as he watched the muscular jumps and throws at NCATA nationals.
"I didn't see competitive cheer there," Penny said. "That's not what I was looking at. I was watching a new sport that has, in my mind, potential to grow into something that's very special."
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