girl born without arms/legs want to be a Cheerleader.

[Fitz]

Wasn't there a one-armed pitcher for a while?

As for basketball teams being forced to bring someone on . . . the NBA should be forced to hire more Caucasians and Orientals, both of whom are seriously under represented based on their prevalence in the population at large. 

Jim abbot. Impressive

[MechAg94]

IMO, the simple thing is to let the girl try out like everyone else.  If she does not make it, that should be the end of it.  If she makes it, they can make allowances for her condition, but if not, she should have the same appeals process everyone else does. 

I think the cheerleaders in my high school wouldn't be athletes, but they didn't do all the cheer competition stuff.  Other high schools take that stuff very very seriously.

[makattak]

IMO, the simple thing is to let the girl try out like everyone else.  If she does not make it, that should be the end of it.  If she makes it, they can make allowances for her condition, but if not, she should have the same appeals process everyone else does. 

I think the cheerleaders in my high school wouldn't be athletes, but they didn't do all the cheer competition stuff.  Other high schools take that stuff very very seriously.

According to the article, they did let her try out. She and her parents are now complaining because they believe the decision was unfair and the team needs to accomodate her disability.

[Fitz]

People need to learn that NO, you CAN'T do anything you put your mind to, and it's not anyone elses responsibility to make it easier for you to do so!

[zxcvbob]

Gee, alot of these posts sound like the company I used to work for.  Many times I put in for a new job and was told, without witnesses of course, that I did not fit the company profile for someone in that position.  I was white, old, fat, and the wrong sex........chris3

You wanted to be a hooker?

[Iain]

Two things that amused me:

1. Fitz's post, juxtaposed with zxcvbob's avatar. Immediately made me think of - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q5Q3rSx2oQ
2. Another juxtaposition, this time of thread titles: "girl born without arms/legs wants to be a Cheerleader" "Pray that my dog wants to eat her"

[T.O.M.]

People need to learn that NO, you CAN'T do anything you put your mind to, and it's not anyone elses responsibility to make it easier for you to do so!

All too true.  Some of the lawyers I see should have been taught that lesson. 

I see this case two ways.  if cheerleading is a "sport" in which they go to games, do cheers, and try to engage the crowd, then they can accomodate her.

If cheerleading is a "sport" where the team goes to competitions and does these gymnastic/dance routines, and all members of the team must participate, then there is no way to accomodate her.

Speaking of ADA, I recently had a mother in a custody case tell me that I had to accomodate the fact that she fell asleep at a public park and let her 2 year old wander around downtown for 2 hours unattended because she's got "narcissuslepsy" that makes her pass out all the time.  Yeah, and the BAC of .19 and heroin found in the needle stuck in her arm had nothing to do with it.

[AJ Dual]

All too true.  Some of the lawyers I see should have been taught that lesson. 

I see this case two ways.  if cheerleading is a "sport" in which they go to games, do cheers, and try to engage the crowd, then they can accomodate her.

If cheerleading is a "sport" where the team goes to competitions and does these gymnastic/dance routines, and all members of the team must participate, then there is no way to accomodate her.

Speaking of ADA, I recently had a mother in a custody case tell me that I had to accomodate the fact that she fell asleep at a public park and let her 2 year old wander around downtown for 2 hours unattended because she's got "narcissuslepsy" that makes her pass out all the time.  Yeah, and the BAC of .19 and heroin found in the needle stuck in her arm had nothing to do with it.

LOL... reminds me of the young man who'd gotten hired at CompUSA when I worked there in the mid-90s in another life. After one week of employment, he vanished for a week, then showed up one day surprised when he was told he no longer worked there.

I was loitering about listening in on his conversation with the managers trying to escort him out. His claim, he "forgot" to show up for the past week because "I gots dat old-timer (Alzheimer's?  ) disease, and need to see a doctor."

[Perd Hapley]

People need to learn that NO, you CAN'T do anything you put your mind to, and it's not anyone elses responsibility to make it easier for you to do so!

This. When God is replaced with govt, people expect it to heal the halt and the blind.

[cosine]

They are a performance. It takes talent and significant athletic ability to do those things (I would add the martial arts "forms" competitions to that list), but a sport has a winner judged by objectively measureable outcomes like time to complete, scoring points, distance, etc.. (in addition to requiring talent and athletic ability.)

So: track and field- takes a lot of ability and talent, measurable outcomes. (Did you cross the line before the other runner? Winner!)- sport
Cheerleading, gymnastics, diving, et al.- takes a lot of ability and talent, no measurable outcome (Judge 6 gives you a 5.7, in his opinion. ) - not a sport
Chess, Bowling, Curling, et al.- measureable outcome, takes talent (and ability) but not athletic ability. Not a sport.

Exactly how I view it. It always cracks me up when I hear about someone wanting to make poker or freestyle yo-yoing an Olympic sport.

[coppertales]

The football team would love that.  No arms and legs to get in the way..................chris3

[gunsmith]

Can someone please tell me why having a girl in a wheelchair zooming around in a wheelchair yelling

ZisBoomBah

Somehow hurts/harms the other girls doing their dance routines? Why is it harmful to have a girl in a wheelchair with a bullhorn and pom poms attached do her routine then have the able bodied girls do theirs?

I do not see any harm in calling her a Cheerleader, letting her do her routine, have the other girls do theirs.

She has the ability to yell

rah rah go team

- so she isn't going to take part in the whatever they call those routines those girls do, so what?

In no way does her being called a Cheerleader & zooming her scooter around doing her routine harms the other girls or prevents them from doing their routines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibfduPiqI2k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POgXCOhAqdU&feature=relmfu

[Hawkmoon]

Cheer leading isn't a sport, it can be a very challenging athletic activity, but I see no harm in allowing this nice young lady to assist in energizing the crowd.

In many states (if not all) cheerleading most certainly IS a sport. It has varsity status, it's complete with tryouts and interscholastic cheerleading competitions, and state championships.

[Perd Hapley]

Can someone please tell me why having a girl in a wheelchair zooming around in a wheelchair yelling  Somehow hurts/harms the other girls doing their dance routines? Why is it harmful to have a girl in a wheelchair with a bullhorn and pom poms attached do her routine then have the able bodied girls do theirs?

I do not see any harm in calling her a Cheerleader, letting her do her routine, have the other girls do theirs.

She has the ability to yell  - so she isn't going to take part in the whatever they call those routines those girls do, so what?

In no way does her being called a Cheerleader & zooming her scooter around doing her routine harms the other girls or prevents them from doing their routines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibfduPiqI2k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POgXCOhAqdU&feature=relmfu

If you want to make that decision, then go apply to run the cheer-leading program at her school. Until then, why not let the folks who DO run it, run it according to their best judgment. Nothing you've said couldn't be applied to my wife, when she tried out for cheer-leading. She didn't make it either. Maybe she's no better at cheer-leading than Mrs. fistful. Why does this young lady automatically get a spot on the team, while Mrs. fistful was kicked out?

[MechAg94]

Last month, she and her parents, Mike and Carolyn Sullivan, asked the Aurora school board to correct what they see as “scoring errors” in her tryout evaluations this spring, saying she was given no accommodation for her disability.

So she wants accommodation.  I thought they said she could do anything?  I am sure there were other girls who didn't make the squad.  What about accommodation for them?

I guess I say that if they want to let her do it, they can, but I don't think they should be required to do it.  The only thing they should be required to do is judge her fairly.  It seems to me that the family is asking to school to say "oh, we feel sorry for the disabled girl so we will let her join the squad despite not making the cut".  I guess that sounds pretty cold, but I really don't think everyone else should be required/forced to allow disabled people to do whatever they want. 

[gunsmith]

I guess that's the crux of it for me, I do feel sorry for her.

Sure it isn't fair to the other girls that didn't make the team, there was a little kid with cancer who got to be superhero for a day, that wasn't fair to all the other little kids with cancer that wanted to be superhero's too-I'm still glad they did that for him.

Yup, I want special treatment for the teen girl with huge disabilities, I guess I'm some kind of statist ogre for wanting them to treat a girl with no legs/no arms a little differently then an able bodied girl.

The only harm to the Cheerleading team you guys have been able to present is that it isn't fair to able bodied girls who didn't make the team.

Life isn't always fair, just ask the girl with no legs or arms.

[Perd Hapley]

The only harm to the Cheerleading team you guys have been able to present is that it isn't fair to able bodied girls who didn't make the team.

So schools have to do anything that kids or parents want, unless they can show that it would harm someone?

[MicroBalrog]

So schools have to do anything that kids or parents want, unless they can show that it would harm someone?

Well, who pays their salaries?

[Perd Hapley]

Well, who pays their salaries?

People with conflicting desires. Regardless, schools are run by a faculty, not by the whim of every parent or child who is involved. So, no, you can't say that a school is bound to do everything that won't harm someone.

[Scout26]

I see this case two ways.

If cheerleading is a "sport" in which they go to games, do cheers, and try to engage the crowd, then they can accomodate her.

If cheerleading is a "sport" where the team goes to competitions and does these gymnastic/dance routines, and all members of the team must participate, then there is no way to accomodate her.

A couple of years back when the neighbor kid was in High Screwl, he was on the Cheerleading squad.  I even think that they competed against others "teams".  The fact that he's about two feet tall and confined to a motorized wheelchair, because he has very brittle and corkscrew shaped long bones didn't seem to deter either him, the school or the other cheerleading team members.  He could yell "RAH, RAH" with the rest of them.  But maybe  it was because he was a guy, and the school had about seven or twelve different cheerleading teams (for the different sports), so maybe everyone that want to cheer could.

So I agree with Chris.

[MicroBalrog]

People with conflicting desires. Regardless, schools are run by a faculty, not by the whim of every parent or child who is involved. So, no, you can't say that a school is bound to do everything that won't harm someone.

The parents are free to exercise pressure - political, or economic in a private school - to alter the school program or whatnot.

[Perd Hapley]

Certainly.

[Lee]

You guys should watch the movie "RADIO".  While I agree that there should generally be standards, there are exceptions made sometimes that pay off.  I go to our local high school football games sometimes, and I'm always struck by the fact that nearly everyone in the stands totally ignores the nubile athletic cheerleaders (or maybe they just feel like old leches like I do). I would think that anyone who is able to motive the fans meets the requirements. 

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3232694553/

[Hawkmoon]

The ADA requires "reasonable accommodation" to be made in the case of a person who can perform the fundamental tasks involved in an activity if given the "reasonable accommodation." An example would be a data entry clerk in a wheel chair who applies for a job in an office where the computer desks don't have a knee opening large enough to fit the wheelchair. The fundamental tasks are reading documents and punching a keyboard to enter the information into a computer. She can do all that -- she just needs a desk with a wider knee opening. That's a reasonable accommodation.

Here, the fundamental tasks of being a cheerleader are whatever the cheerleaders do at that school. Typically, the tasks involve running and jumping and perhaps dancing in unison, as a group. This girl is not asking for a reasonable accommodation so that she can be allowed to perform the fundamental tasks. She is asking that the entire cheerleader routines -- the fundamental tasks themselves -- be changed from what they are to something she can perform.

That is NOT a "reasonable accommodation" in the eyes of the ADA.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Once again, having a disabled girl on the team does not harm the team in compition for at the high school level.

Allowences are made in the judging.