A new study released by the National Center for Catastrophic Sports
Injury Research at the University of North Carolina recognizes an
increased emphasis on cheerleading safety. The study acknowledges
safety developments such as Varsity Spirit's alliance with the NCAA to
enhance cheerleading safety at NCAA institutions by creating the
College Cheerleading Safety Initiative.

Varsity Spirit in a statement noted that the NCAA's insurance company
has not had a single catastrophic injury claim since the NCAA started
requiring coaches to get safety training three years ago.

“We agree with the findings of the study that even one injured
cheerleader is one too many,” said Jeff Webb, founder and CEO of
Varsity Spirit. “That's why Varsity remains dedicated to cheerleading
safety. This is personal to us. Our children are cheerleaders, our
neighbors' children are cheerleaders, we were cheerleaders. It's our
mission to help keep cheerleaders safe when they practice and perform
their routines.”

This summer, more than 350,000 cheerleaders and their coaches will
receive safety instruction at thousands of cheerleading camps conducted
by Varsity Spirit. This year Varsity has expanded its widely recognized
Safety Awareness Program from the college cheer camps to all of its
camps. Varsity hopes the cheerleaders and their coaches will take the
lessons learned back to their gyms, schools, and parents.

In calculating the risk of injury of high school athletes, the UNC
study finds that sports such as, gymnastics, football and ice hockey
have a higher risk of injury per 100,000 participants than
cheerleading, which contradicts recent reporting about the safety of
cheerleading.

“These findings mean that the cheerleading community including training
organizations, schools, coaches and the athletes themselves remain
committed to cheerleading safety,” said Jim Lord, executive director of
the AACCA. “We can never relax our standards. We cannot let up on our
safety initiatives to train coaches, cheerleaders and administrators.”

Three years ago, Varsity joined the National Federation of High School
Associations to help develop their Spirit Education Program which
provides a framework for safe practices in cheerleading programs at the
18,000 high schools across America.

Varsity.com provides extensive safety resources for cheerleaders,
parents, administrators and coaches at
www.varsity.com/library/safety.aspx. Among those resources is the
Parent's Guide to Cheerleading Safety, which provides tools to help
parents assess the safety of their children's cheer programs. It helps
them ask the right questions and recognize when there's a problem that
needs to be addressed.

In addition to Varsity's work to establish the first safety regulations
in the 1980s, Varsity has been at the helm of a large number of safety
programs in recent years, and that work is paying off.

According to a National Electronic Injury Surveillance System survey by
the Consumer Products Safety Commission, emergency room visits among
cheerleaders, which had been increasing every year, have leveled off in
the last five years and declined in some years.

“We will continue to use our influence in the cheerleading community to
emphasize the importance of safe cheerleading,” Webb said. “We are
committed to this goal.”