In 17 years of covering high school sports, I have been to games/matches/tournaments/meets in football, basketball, baseball, softball, track, volleyball, soccer, wrestling, swimming, diving, cross country, golf, tennis, bowling, water polo, judo, kayaking, sailing and even lacrosse ... but until this week, never cheerleading.

Well, add that one to the list as I made it down to the ILH championships on Monday and the OIA championships yesterday (Saturday).

Going into Punahou's Hemmeter Fieldhouse Monday night, I knew almost nothing about cheerleading competitions and I came out ... well, at least I knew more than I did going in.

First of all, it had to be one of the quickest sporting events I've ever been to. With only four teams entered doing one performance each, it was pau after less than 45 minutes.

For a reporter on deadline, that's a good thing.

The second thing you notice right away — as you might expect — is that the atmosphere is very upbeat and the teams are very enthusiastic. So is the crowd, which was surprisingly large (about 600?).

Unlike other sports where you often see ranges of emotion from the players and fans (excited, disappointed, happy, frustrated, etc.), in cheerleading the mood from everybody seems to be uplifting from start to finish. It's the 'Happiest Sport on Earth,' if you just look at the smiling faces.

The actual performances are much of what you might see during halftime of a football or basketball game, except maybe the stunts are a little more gymnastic and acrobatic. And since this is competition, I think there is more pressure to execute and pay attention to detail.

I've seen Kamehameha's cheerleading team perform at football, basketball and volleyball, so I knew they are very good. Their excellence carries over to the competitions.

Saturday at Campbell, the crowd was even bigger (about 850?) as there were more teams involved — 12 for varsity and 10 for JV. So this event takes much longer, about three hours.

Another difference is that unlike most sports where they finish the JV first and then start the varsity, in OIA cheerleading they alternate it so that a JV team goes first, and then a varsity, then JV again, then varsity, then JV, and so forth.

Kind of like track and field.

The reason is, there are different judges for JV and vars, so by alternating, it gives the judges time in between performances to tally up their scores.

Oh yeah, the scoring.

It's very detailed, with 16 different categories valued at five or 10 points each. A perfect overall score would be 125, so with three judges the maximum amount of points is 375.

Radford scored 337.5, which breaks down to an average of about 112 per judge. That's pretty darn good, especially since the next-closest team (Kapolei) had 303.

The announcing of the scores has its own excitement, as each team gathers on the court (after the mat is quickly stripped apart and rolled away) in a circle sitting down cross-legged, holding hands.

And no matter what place — 10th, fifth, second — each team cheers and hugs as their name is announced. Talk about a positive atmosphere.

It's still a sport that is trying to gain mainstream acceptance, even to convince people that it is a sport in the first place. I think it is.

I've learned a lot by watching Monday's and Saturday's championships — thanks in large part to HHSAA cheerleading coordinator Kellie Mikami O'Donnell, who patiently answered all my questions and pointed out things to look for.

Obviously, I still have a lot to learn.

But at least now I have an idea of what cheerleading competitions are about and hopefully can help bring exposure and recognition to what seems to be a popular and fast-growing sport in Hawai‘i.

For a reporter covering high schools, that's a good thing.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 2:19 am and is filed under Prep Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.