Testifying in a lawsuit involving Title IX guidelines, Jeff Webb, founder and CEO of Varsity Spirit, said he believes cheerleading should not be a competitive sport, saying that making it so
would threaten “classical sideline cheerleading.”

As reported, a federal judge in Connecticut is being asked to decide whether
cheerleading should be counted as a sport by schools to satisfy Title IX
requirements. The trial stems from a lawsuit filed last year by five
members of the volleyball team at Connecticut's Quinnipiac University
and coach Robin Sparks after the school decided in a budgetary move to
eliminate women's volleyball in favor of a competitive cheer squad.

Webb was
called as an expert witness in the case. In a statement from Varsity Spirit, Webb said designating cheerleading under Title IX's requirements could
require that cheerleading's primary role would be to compete. That would mean school cheerleaders would no longer be able to cheer on the sidelines as
they do now.

“We support any effort that promotes cheerleading or that creates
opportunities for women and girls,” Webb said. “At the same time, we
want to make sure that any sport designation does not take away the
traditional role of cheerleading and that we preserve the very qualities
that make cheerleading such an appealing activity for young people. I'm
thinking of leadership, ambassadorship, service in the community: these
are the character traits that cheerleading has always fostered.”

Webb added, “Varsity's position is that we support all forms of
cheerleading. This includes traditional school cheerleading as well as
the popular derivation known as All Star. Varsity supports any
development that gives a larger group of young people the opportunity to
participate in cheerleading.”

To eliminate potential confusion, one solution Varsity has recommended
is to create a separate discipline – that is not called cheerleading –
whose sole focus is competition. This new discipline may include some of
the components of cheerleading; however, it should have a distinct
look, format, name, and rules.

“Whatever resolution occurs, cheerleading must be allowed to retain its
true values and function which have evolved over the past 100 years:
leadership, spirit raising, entertainment, athleticism, and an element
of competition,” Webb said.