Two years ago Noah Janssen ‘18, and graduates Vincent Oriade and Tyler Cardwell boosted graduate Zach Bohall into the air at chest-level as they cheered the female football players at the 2015 Powder Puff football game during homecoming week. This year the school said no more boy cheerleaders because someone could be offended by gender stereotypes.

The school banned the cheerleaders due to the fact that they might offend someone for acting girly, getting excited, jumping around, doing cheers, stunts and getting the crowd excited. However, when the girls act tough playing football and run plays and act like boys, why don’t we find this offensive? With anything today someone could find some reason they are offended by it, so why are we only focusing on the boy cheerleaders? Why not just ban everything, do nothing except school. Just because someone could be offended by it.  

Now a quick disclaimer I understand with everything going on in today’s age and it being acceptable for people to be whoever they want to be, and having your own opinion is completely acceptable. That does not make it okay for everyone to stop what they are doing to fulfill whatever needs everyone else has. If we did that for everyone who seems to have a problem with something we would get nothing done. In some conditions some old traditions may not come across like they used to but for it to be offensive to have guy cheerleaders, in general, seems foolish. There are males who actually cheer as their sport of choice. Why would it be offensive for more guys to try it out and have a little fun at this homecoming event? The point of them is to not make fun of gender, it’s purely for fun and entertainment.

Quite a few kids who normally attend the powder puff game were very upset to hear that there weren’t going to be any cheerleaders because in some instances they are the best part. The cheerleaders make everyone laugh and if I’m going to be honest, I wasn’t very motivated to go knowing the cheerleaders weren’t going to be there. “ I think it’s so stupid, if it bothers you then you don’t have to go,” Alexis Wolter, ’18 said. “Think of it like this, if you don’t like how Stephen Colbert talks about trump every night then don’t watch it.”

Our varsity cheer squad was also quite upset when they would not be able to help coach the boys of a few cheers and stunts. Brooke Redshaw, one of the varsity cheerleaders, talked to me about how she and some of the other cheerleaders felt about this decision. “Last year I helped out with teaching the guys the cheers and stunts, it was a lot of fun. I and a bunch of other cheerleaders were really sad that we didn’t get to do it this year. All the guys really loved it too, everyone had fun. It was never supposed to be about making fun of gender role, it was just a fun laid back tradition.” Helping everyone learn cheers and stunts was definitely a highlight of homecoming week for quite a few people, then going on the field to watch them engage the crowd. Everyone got very into all the cheers and love watching them stunt.

Since I am a junior I never got the chance to help out the guys with learning cheers and stunts, although my freshmen year I was in journalism and had the opportunity to come to one of the powderpuff cheer practices for a paper I was doing. It was in the multi-purpose room in the old high school, just a room full of cheerleaders both girl and boy excited to try new things and get ready for the game. No one was worried about offending anyone or cared about how they looked because it was all fun and games. The whole point was to get the crowd cheering for our football players for the night.

There have been some changes at the the new JHS building, some are good and others are kinda frustrating. I hope nothing else that the student body looks forward to get taken away any time soon. It’s frustrating to see a transition that made so many of us smile get taken away due to the fact it offended someone. We are all entitled to our opinion, and that’s ok, but that does not mean that opinion is everyone else’s opinion.