Women’s cheerleading no longer exists as a sport.

For the 2012-13 school year, the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland (IAAM) has decided not to consider cheerleading a competitive sport in the conference. “The reason is, the girls conference, the IAAM was considering making cheer a competitive sport in the conference,” Athletic Director Larry Dukes said.

“It was brought forward by myself and another athletic director from Mt. Carmel. Unfortunately, when it came to a vote, the other AD’s [athletic directors in favor in making cheerleading a competitive sport] were outvoted by other schools.” Dukes said that  the reasoning behind this decision is due to the lack of support in athletic departments in the IAAM schools.

“They [those who voted against making cheerleading a competitive sport] didn’t have enough support all the way around. The mats are an expensive commodity and some of the schools didn’t want to buy the mats. Only a couple of us [members of the IAAM] could host a cheer competition. And some of the schools just didn’t have the interest.” Dukes said.

“Because we’re members of the conference, we’re subject to whatever decisions they make in the conference,” Dukes said.

Other schools in the IAAM conference have decided to turn their existing cheerleading teams for next year into spirit, dance, or cheer clubs. However, Dukes has opted to still consider cheerleading a sport within JC.

“We’ve decided to keep it. That way it falls under my domain and they get funding for transportation and entry fees. We consider it a sport here at John Carroll. However, around the conference, it is no longer a sport,” Dukes said.

To Dukes, a challenge of the cheer program is that it has no strong definition of a season compared to other sports that know their conference, schedule, and costs a year in advance.

With this lack of definition, sophomore Andrea Roche, captain of the JV cheerleading team, worries that cheerleading will lack any consistency.

“It’s kind of a disappointment. So we kind of have changing practice times, we never have a set practice so it’s kind of frustrating that everything is all unorganized,” Roche said.

“We will still fund the buses, pay for the entry fees to some degree. Whatever budget is allocated to me is what I have to work with. They will have as much as they have this year to work with, more than likely, and that’s been pretty consistent for the last several years.” Dukes said.

Maggie Cassidy is the Print Chief for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com