Cheerleading is not a sport.

That’s right. I said it, and I’ll say it again. Cheerleading is not a sport. If you don’t believe me, ask the NCAA or the University of Alabama. They will tell you exactly the same thing.

In fact, both already have. Earlier in the month, the Crimson Tide cheerleading squad won the national championship by upsetting Kentucky. I know, I know. Just another fall sport that the SEC seems to dominate.

But the boys and gals that led the ‘Bama faithful in Roll Tide cheers won’t be receiving championship rings despite the policy of the University of Alabama to provide them after one of their own wins a national championship. Their reason was quite simple. Cheerleading is not a sport.

Well, it was a little more politically correct than that. They said it wasn’t an NCAA officially sanctioned sport. So, in reality, the NCAA says it isn’t a sport and the University of Alabama agrees with that assessment.

So do I.

What is cheerleading, really? It’s dancing and yelling so far as I can tell. Granted, it takes a lot of athletic ability to jump backwards and sideways and to flip around hither and thither. No doubt, there are countless hours of choreographing and practicing. I’m sure they hit the weights and train like athletes of officially sanctioned NCAA sports.

And, hey, they are certainly athletic. They compete. I’ll give them that. They just don’t compete in a sport.

A sport is something pure, something with a definitive scoring method. In football, you get six points if the ball crosses your opponent’s goal line if one of your players is in control of the football. You get another point if you kick it through the uprights after the touchdown. If you can’t score a touchdown, but kick it through the uprights, you still get three points. These rules are set in stone. You don’t get extra points for being pretty or points deducted because the form was less than the perfect soccer style kicking technique.

Before people starting labeling me as a sexist because cheerleading is dominated by females (even though most college squads have a large contingent of males also), let me set the record straight. I’m an equal opportunity hater.

Cheerleading, gymnastics, figure skating, diving, and the majority of X Games events are not sports in my opinion. If it requires judges to dictate the score rather than an unbiased, by-golly point scoring method, it just isn’t a real sport. It’s art that is judged.

This distinction of sport and arts such as gymnastics is not received very well among the fancy dance community. Apparently, they don’t like to be seen as something as elegant as art. It’s sport or bust. Well, I don’t agree.

For me to consider something a sport, the objective needs to be more important than the subjective. Woe be the day that a slam dunk gets an extra two tenths of a point because it was a reverse jam or a three point basket only gets 2.5 because the shot was a little flat or drew some iron before sliding through the net.

That isn’t to say that some sports don’t have subjective elements. What exactly constitutes pass interference anyway? Balls and strikes are even named “judgment calls” by the rule book. Don’t get me started on continuation in the NBA.

And yes, I understand that many boxing matches and mixed martial arts fights have ended going to the judges’ scorecard. And at that point, the winner, especially in MMA, is determined by very subjective terms. But you know what? Both boxing and MMA have a very objective way to finish before it goes to the judges. Someone can quit or someone can be separated from their consciousness, otherwise known as knocked out.

In a real sport, the objective must take precedence over the subjective. NASCAR is much more of a sport than gymnastics because the scoring is clear. Lead laps, get points. Finish near the top, earn a bunch of points. Golf is the most objective sport of all. Par is four. Make it in three, good for you. Make it in five, the ugly square goes on the scorecard.

Is this the way it is in cheerleading or gymnastics? No way. Someone can land a sideways salto (that would be a sideways somersault), but if the right pinky toe is not exactly 40 degrees south by southwest, it’s a deduction. That’s probably somewhat of an exaggeration, but it’s not the same as scoring a goal in hockey which always counts exactly the same no matter how ugly or pretty the shot that sent the puck into the net happens to look.

Again, I’m not at all saying that gymnasts and cheerleaders aren’t athletic. They certainly are. I would never even attempt to do the crazy stuff they do. It’s dangerous, and I would likely break my neck. I wouldn’t go snorkeling with the sharks either. That requires some athletic ability, some risk, and is a bit crazy. Still not a sport.

That being said, the University of Alabama needs to award these hard working student athl...student competitors with national championship rings. They competed in an artistic showdown with short skirts and letter signs. They made their most geometrically perfect pyramids and yelled “Roll Tide” in perfect unison.

So, no. It’s not a sport, but I’m willing to give them their due.