Written by Another week, another story about another sexual misconduct issue within cheerleading in the United States. Last week, a 25 year old coach was arrested for indecent liberties with a child and a 23 year old college cheerleader, who was also featured in Netflix’s “Cheer” and NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”, was arrested for aggravated sexual assault of a child. It is just another blemish for an already beleaguered U.S. All Star Federation and their handling of allegations of misconduct involving minors.
While these two arrests do not seem to be related to cheerleading itself, did these men act inappropriately with young cheerleaders in the past? We may not ever know the answer to this. However, it needs to be looked into as if these two men were arrested for these crimes against children this time, were there other times that were not reported, and their targets are still suffering in silence?
Now, you may say that these two men are innocent, or presumed innocent until they are convicted of their crimes. My discussion here is not about guilty or innocence, but rather why cheerleading is embroiled in so many recent cases of sexual misconduct and that there were convicted sex offenders still involved in cheerleading. Another example to this is when a gym reported the sexual misconduct allegations to the police and U.S. All Star Federation in October 2020, U.S. All Star Federation failed to suspend the man until last week, after the police arrested him.
And why is there a recent influx of attention to cheerleading concerned with sexual misconduct charges? I would argue that victims are gaining the strength they need to speak up, more people are willing to listen, and authorities are taking claims of sexual misconduct more seriously. It will be interesting to see when cheerleading understands that it is time to drastically change their culture. The time is not only now but has been for decades. U.S. All Star Federation has recently demonstrated that they are willing to suspend coaches, gym owners, and others when they are arrested or convicted but only as a reactionary measure. I hope that U.S. All Star Federation will honestly take look deep inside themselves, analyze their current culture and way of doing business, and change for the benefit and safety of the cheerleaders.