Inclusion Goes Off the Rails, AGAIN

Forums: News, Fitting In, Decline Of Standards
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A Nebraska girl born with incomplete arms and no legs has finally achieved her dream of being a cheerleader – thanks to a high school coach about 800 miles away.

Julia Sullivan, 16, of Aurora, and her family traveled last week to Portland (Michigan) High School at the invitation of Portland cheerleading coach Linda Fox, who had Sullivan join her varsity squad for Friday’s homecoming football game.

It was the first time that Julia, who tried out for her high school’s squad in Nebraska three times without success, had cheered on a team in public, CNN affiliate WILX reported.

“I love to get the crowd going, and (I’m) just … excited (to) show the world what I can do,” she told WILX.

Fox said she’d read about Julia’s efforts to join her squad in Aurora.

“I was surfing the Internet and came on Julia’s story, and I was very inspired,” Fox told WILX. “I brought it to the team, and they challenged me to do something.”

Julia and her parents, Mike and Carolyn Sullivan, flew to Michigan at their own expense, the Omaha World-Herald reported.

Julia, wearing a modified Portland High School cheerleading uniform, cheered on the sidelines from her chair, and participated in the final stunt with the help of the team, to the applause of students in the stands, according to the Ionia (Michigan) Sentinel-Standard.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/28/disabled-girl-gets-spot-on-cheer-team-hundreds-of-miles-away/?hpt=hp_bn2

Look, I am happy that she has spirit, "you go girl!" , but if she cant do the cheer leading duties then she can not be a cheerleader.

For several years my kid's high school band had this kid who has mental problems and who can not walk banging away at a drum periodically (because he could not keep rhythm), it was so pathetic, and it ruined the sound of everyone else. I asked my daughter WTF he was doing there when he cant do anything useful for the band.....she said that because of politics there was nothing anyone could do about it, he wanted to be there so everyone else had no choice but to let him bang away as they were trying to play.

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Type: Discussion • Score: 10 • Views: 3,350 • Replies: 54

@hawkeye10,

Yes I had heard about that too. And agree - if some one can't fit the role, then is it fair to give it to her. What if another girl cannot remember the cheers because she has a hard time remembering things - should she get priority too?

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Jeez. What are people thinking? I mean, here are these kids who face a lifetime of bullshit and then they have to go and ruin a few minutes of someone's high school experience? Selfish bastards.

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@hawkeye10,

I think the two examples you give are different.

Someone banging randomly and messing up the band's sound is a problem. I think there are more creative ways to bring him in to things.

I have no problem at all with the cheerleader story, though. This part is awesome:

Quote:

“I brought it to the team, and they challenged me to do something.”

That the team WANTED to do something about it, and that the cheerleading coach both brought it to their attention and then made it happen -- that's great.

And it sounds like they did a great job of integrating her into the cheers.

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@sozobe,

I also agree this is a different case. This girl tried to get on her high school team and failed. No other girl was bumped to allow this girl to get on the team. No pressure was brought on anyone to be "inclusive". A coach and her team volunteered to make a one time special effort to help someone. I don't understand the concern.

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Can we take the principle a step further?

If a student has a bad memory,
such that he cannot remember any of the information
that the teachers try to teach him, and he does not pass any of the tests,
shoud he be included among the graduates and awarded a diploma ?

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Look, I am happy that she has spirit, "you go girl!" , but if she cant do the cheer leading duties then she can not be a cheerleader.

And what, exactly, are those duties? I didn't know you needed arms and legs to yell "go team!"

hawkeye10 wrote:

For several years my kid's high school band had this kid who has mental problems and who can not walk banging away at a drum periodically (because he could not keep rhythm), it was so pathetic, and it ruined the sound of everyone else. I asked my daughter WTF he was doing there when he cant do anything useful for the band.....she said that because of politics there was nothing anyone could do about it, he wanted to be there so everyone else had no choice but to let him bang away as they were trying to play.

And that little drummer boy grew up to become BillRM.

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@engineer,

I don't mind the one time thing and I understand the wanting to make something special for this girl - but one thing to remember what about all the girls that tried out for the team before? Maybe no one got bumped that is currently on this team - but other girls did not make the team (unless in the rare case that everyone that tried out made the team)

Shouldn't then we allow all the girls that tried out and didn't make it - get a one time opportunity too?

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@Linkat,

Yeah, and maybe the Make a Wish Foundation is discriminating against kids who don't have a terminal disease.

Let's not do anything nice for one person, because we can't do something nice for everybody....

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@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

Yeah, and maybe the Make a Wish Foundation is discriminating against kids who don't have a terminal disease.

Thay DO.

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@DrewDad,

That is a charity - this is a public school.

A charity's purpose is just that - it is their business. A public school is not a charity and that is not its purpose.

And if you read - I did say I can understand wanting to do that - because of the caring and so forth - but their does come into play a fairness.

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@Linkat,

You could say that about every nice thing done ever done. If the world is full of people who need help and I help one, do I have an obligation to help all of them too? If a public school has a Key Club, do they have to help all people equally because the school is public? I think if this girl was just a hard working girl without disabilities that caught a break we wouldn't even be having this discussion. People get breaks sometimes and they aren't evenly distributed. I think in this case the girl is on the short end of getting breaks in life and I'm ok with her getting a day in the sun. If they had kicked someone off the team to make room, I'd feel differently.

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@engineer,

I am not saying - no don't do it - actually read what I wrote - where I said I don't have a problem with it especially where it is one time thing - I am being devils advocate pointing out the other side.

And again - the purpose of a key club is charity. The purpose of cheerleading is cheerleading. If they feel this girl is qualified and meets requirements that is on e thing and like I said before if she is taking the place of some one else that tried out but didn't make it and they are better suited.

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@Linkat,

Linkat wrote:

That is a charity - this is a public school.

Yup. So what?

Are they spending a bunch of money on a bus for one kid or something?

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@Linkat,

Linkat wrote:

The purpose of cheerleading is cheerleading.

Kinda seems like the people involved think differently. Are you saying that a cheerleading squad should be prevented from doing a charity car wash?

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@engineer,

Quote:

If they had kicked someone off the team to make room, I'd feel differently.

I it seem have a little more trouble than you do that the game has been changed so that one person can feel useful, that the standards have been gutted. That nobody was forced off of the team does not in any way mean that nothing has been lost here.

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@hawkeye10,

The standards haven't been changed. The cheerleading squad decided to do something special for someone. When the football team is ahead 70-0 and they decide to let the scrubs play a series do you have the same concerns? I mean do you always play your best players or are you allowed to move it around some? Isn't the star quarterback being discrimated against for being too good and scoring all those points? If you left him in there to run up the score, he might own all the records in the book, so why pull him? It seems like you are saying that there is a bar for cheerleading and no one who ever fails to clear it will ever be allowed to cheer. I don't see that as being consistent with how we treat able bodied people nor in line with the goals of school athletics.

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@engineer,

Quote:

It seems like you are saying that there is a bar for cheerleading and no one who ever fails to clear it will ever be allowed to cheer.

Certainly, they must be reasonably good looking, and be able to do the cheers that are traditionally done, must be able/willing to follow directions and must be able to get along with the rest of the team. Those who cant or wont do these things should not be on the team...standards must be maintained. Keep the CareBear "everyone is great and can do what every they want to do" mythos for the under 12 YO set please, at some point these young people must grow up and enter the world that is....High School is a good time to work on this.

EDIT: judging by the cheer teams I see another standard that must be maintained is that they must have hair long enough to put into a ponytail....

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@hawkeye10,

You must have hated that movie "Rudy" where the waterboy gets to play in the last game. The idea of the person without all the physical gifts overcoming obstacles and getting the reward due to hard work and drive is a classic story.

Quote:

In 2005, Rudy was named one of the best 25 sports movies of the previous 25 years in two polls by ESPN (#24 by a panel of sports experts, and #4 by espn.com users).[1] It was ranked the 54th-most inspiring film of all time in the "AFI 100 Years" series.

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@engineer,

Quote:

You must have hated that movie "Rudy" where the waterboy gets to play in the last game. The idea of the person without all the physical gifts overcoming obstacles and getting the reward due to hard work and drive is a classic story.

Cheerleading does not have the tradition where those who are not good enough to start dont participate unless the starter needs a break or gets hurt... or the game is all but officially over. But a girl without limbs is not able to do any of the duties of a cheerleader, even if cheer had a second or third string she does not deserve to be on it, and I gathered that this incapable cheerleader is out of the floor all of the time that the real cheerleaders are.

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Inclusion Goes Off the Rails, AGAIN

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