C Squared

I'm off chasing a new bigger fish to hold up and dangle in my avatar, but I didn't wanna leave you high and dry so here is a vintage (sounds better than retread or rerun) post that you may not have read.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Give me a C ... for confused

Have you ever heard of a referee competition? Follow me on this. Can you picture a bunch of guys standing out in some field, clad in their trusty black and white stripes competing to see how high they can throw a yellow flag? Me neither, but it might sound something like this if ESPN televised such an event.

"Boy Howdy Jim. Look at Frank Jones go. He's really on his A game today. I've never seen anyone signal false start with such zest."

"You said it Biff. He got a full 720 on that rotation. And his form was flawless."

Ridiculous right? Nobody cares how well a ref looks while he throws a flag or signals a penalty, so what would be the point of having them compete just for the sake of competition? Refs only have value as long as they are needed to police an actual game.

So why in the world do we have cheerleader competition? What are they cheering for? And who are they leading is these supposed cheers?

Here in Amarillo we have at least two "organizations" that girls or guys of all ages can join and cheer. Not for sports teams but in cheer competitions. Why? Somebody please explain this to me.

I know someone will take offense to this and claim my attitude towards this is sexist, but really I don't think that is the case. To me it is more a case of putting the cart before the horse. It would be like having a Zamboni driver competition based on how pretty of turn they make at each end of the ice, when his real job is to lay a decent sheet down so the game can proceed. Or to take the analogy out of the arena, Like judging a conductor on how well he flings that little stick around(yes I'm aware that description makes me sound like a hick) instead of how well the symphony plays.

What's your opinion on this? I suspect most of you will disagree, but that's okay. I can live with rejection. I'm a writer.