Deja Harrison Capstone

My capstone focused on the uprising of my competitive cheerleading team. I believe that the cheerleading team which is a combination or SLA Center City and SLA beeber has for too long been cast in the shadows or brushed aside as a non-priority to the school. My team holds first place titles and my girls and I get no recognition for it. The purpose of my capstone was to gain exposure and opportunity for the cheerleading team so that a legacy can be left and the team can thrive without the seniors who are moving on. My goal was to show people the world of competitive cheer and help them realize the significance of the sport. My capstone started in the summertime with small performances, interviews on the news and attending a cheerleading camp that featured teams from all over the country. It lead up until college sign in day where we performed and gained global recognition from the media. In doing all of this with my team I learned the importance of collaboration. Through being on the team together we bonded and I am extremely lucky to have them because they helped me so much in my process. My process included finding events for us to perform at such as our performance at the annual Halloween Fashion Show SLA has, coming up with dances and cheers for the team to perform with, having an abundance of practices and fundraising to get us new uniforms and materials we needed for competitions.

This was our cheerleading competition for States in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
This was our cheerleading competition for States in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
This was our cheerleading competition for the Philadelphia Districts competition where we took home 2nd place.
This was our cheerleading competition for the Philadelphia Districts competition where we took home 2nd place.
This was The National College Sign in Day after we performed.
This was The National College Sign in Day after we performed.
Cheerleading Competition where we performed choreography the three of us influenced
Cheerleading Competition where we performed choreography the three of us influenced
The seniors who worked very hard this year to set the bar for next season
The seniors who worked very hard this year to set the bar for next season

“Being a Cheerleader - Is Cheerleading a Sport?” The Official Site - Varsity.Com - We Are Cheerleading, www.varsity.com/event/1262/being-a-cheerleader-sport.


With this source I looked into the age old question that typically comes when hearing about cheerleading. Is cheerleading a sport or not? This article spoke about what it truly means to be a cheerleader and what cheerleaders go through on a day to day basis. It gave a lot of detail about the definition of the word sport and how there is no solid definition for an official sport. According to the article what makes a sport an official sport is it involving some form of physical activity, competing against opponents and acknowledgement of the competition that has a primary purpose such as the super bowl or the world series.


Pennington, Bill. “As Cheerleaders Soar Higher, So Does the Danger.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 Mar. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/sports/31cheerleader.html


This source helped me highlight the importance of staying safe in cheerleading. Many people believe that cheer is all dance and chants but it is far more complex. We are lifting up girls that are our weight or more so in order to avoid danger we have to take special precaution. This article also talks about how sports like football have armor and cheerleaders do just as much if not more than they do without an armor at all. It is a lot more dangerous for cheerleaders than it is for those of other sports for these reasons. I believe this is why cheerleading is the most dangerous sport.


Mather, Victor. “Great Moments in Cheerleading: Could the Olympics Be Next?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Dec. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/sports/great-moments-in-cheerleading-could-the-olympics-be-next.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FCheerleaders&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection.


This source helped me see more of the evolution of cheer. I got to dive into where cheerleading came from and how it has changed over the years. I think this source is important because it represents like an old school way of thinking about cheer. I feel like a lot of people see cheer as more of a hobby just because of how it was represented in the past. I want people to see that cheer is a constant growing and complex sport. I feel as though this source is more of a timeline of the cheerleading spectrum. It really helped me in getting into the history of cheerleading.


Almasy, Steve. “Cheerleaders prep for hours in search of 2½ minutes of perfection.” CNN, Cable News Network, 15 July 2011, www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/15/sports.sweep.allstar.cheerleading/index.html.


This source helped give a more detail explanation of what cheerleaders go through. Practice is very intense and everything that follows it as well. It goes into detail about training and goals in order to succeed in the sport. I feel like it helps explain what cheerleaders strive so hard for. A title and a trophy just like every other sport. It also speaks on the risk in the sports such as injuries that I believe people don’t know enough about. Cheerleaders work just as hard as other athletes if not harder because they compete for a certain amount of time and have to give there all in a 2 to 3 minute window. That one performance is all they have and there is no coming back from it.



BetterBraces.com. “Cheerleading: The Most Dangerous Sport.” ACTIVEkids, Active.com, 2 Mar. 2016, www.activekids.com/cheerleading/articles/cheerleading-the-most-dangerous-sport.


This source goes to further explain the difficulty of the cheerleading as a sport. It speaks more on the stats of injuries for cheer. It helped me see and explain cheerleading and everything that comes with it. It talks about what practices and coaching looks and sounds like. It gives the percentages of injuries as well. It also brings up the good point that when typically thinking about injuries in sports people immediately think of sports like football and basketball. I feel like this source helps me prove the point that cheer is a very complex sport being that they called in the most dangerous in the world.


Morgan, Richard. “Cheerleading has evolved into a billion-Dollar business.” New York Post, New York Post, 24 Apr. 2017, nypost.com/2017/04/24/cheerleading-has-evolved-into-a-billion-dollar-business/.


This article speaks more on the cost of cheerleading and the number of people involved in it. Apparently it is in the midst of becoming an Olympic sport. I find that extremely interesting because the sport is heavily doubted and it is a very difficult sport. I believe that it does become apart of the Olympics it will finally get the recognition it deserves. This source helped me bring up my point that many people are involved in the sport men and women of all different ages. I pulled a lot of quotes about the involvement of people in cheer and some background on where the sport came from.


Cinetic. “American Cheerleader - Official Trailer.” YouTube, YouTube, 9 July 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=caBZRrJT_vw.


This documentary was a very big help in showing and explaining the world of cheerleading. It captures 2 teams preparing to go up against each other for a title. The documentary shows what the sport is all about while also representing all the work that goes into it. I found this source extremely helpful in showing the positives in the sport and accurately portraying what cheerleaders look like. It shows and represents competitive cheerleading and what it’s like to be apart of that and to be in that environment. I think that in my documentary I can incorporate a lot of their ideas about the importance of cheer and how strict everything gets when a competition is involved.


“Cheer Squad.” Netflix, 14 Mar. 2017, www.netflix.com/title/80170845.


This show is another that helped accurately represents the competitive cheer world. The show follows a team in Canada that is known for continuously winning and it follows their journey to multiple competitions. This source helped me alot with really understanding how an all star team works and how much work goes into being on a professional team. From this source I got a lot of ideas on how I want to film my own video. I like the way they set up the show being a lot of videos of interviews and then showing clips of them practicing and competing.


“Bring it on.” Netflix, 1 Jan. 2018, www.netflix.com/title/60001366.


The movie Bring it on is a very good source to me because it captures exactly the opposite of what I am trying to portray in my documentary. It shows the difficulty of the sport and highlights the competition but it still represents a very stereotypical type of cheerleader.  I want my documentary to capture the different aspects of not just cheer but also cheerleaders. This source is kind of what I want to base mhy documentary off I just plan to tell the story of cheer in a better way then the director of this film. I want to show the diversity in the sport.



“Being a Cheerleader - History of Cheerleading.” The Official Site - Varsity.Com - We Are Cheerleading, www.varsity.com/event/1261/being-a-cheerleader-history.


This source really helped me find more information on the history of cheerleading. I got to see where exactly it came from and how it came to be. They spoke on how UCA ( Universal Cheer Association ) and how it started. I think that it really helped me/ figure out where cheer came from and why it’s important. I took a lot of my information from the years everything was established. I hope to use a lot of the dates in my documentary when I’m speaking on the history of cheerleading. I feel like in adding this it will put historical significance in my video.


My capstone focused on the uprising of my competitive cheerleading team. I believe that the cheerleading team which is a combination or SLA Center City and SLA beeber has for too long been cast in the shadows or brushed aside as a non-priority to the school. My team holds first place titles and my girls and I get no recognition for it. The purpose of my capstone was to gain exposure and opportunity for the cheerleading team so that a legacy can be left and the team can thrive without the seniors who are moving on. My goal was to show people the world of competitive cheer and help them realize the significance of the sport. My capstone started in the summertime with small performances, interviews on the news and attending a cheerleading camp that featured teams from all over the country. It lead up until college sign in day where we performed and gained global recognition from the media. In doing all of this with my team I learned the importance of collaboration. Through being on the team together we bonded and I am extremely lucky to have them because they helped me so much in my process. My process included finding events for us to perform at such as our performance at the annual Halloween Fashion Show SLA has, coming up with dances and cheers for the team to perform with, having an abundance of practices and fundraising to get us new uniforms and materials we needed for competitions.

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