1. WEIRD CASES
George Orwell defined sport as “war minus the shooting”. Taking another perspective, a
chirpy young Liverpudlian asked recently by a radio interviewer to define sport, replied “if you
can do it while you’re smoking it’s not sport”. So, darts, golf and snooker would be pastimes.
It is unlikely that Judge Stefan Underhill in Connecticut will use the smoking test when he
decides the unprecedented legal question now before him: is cheerleading a sport?
The question arises in this way. A US federal law known as Title IX requires that no one in
America shall, on the basis of gender, be excluded from or discriminated against in “any
education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance...”
That means, among other things, equal opportunities for men and women in university sports.
Five members of the volleyball team and the coach at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut
filed a legal action after their institution decided for budgetary reasons to end women’s
volleyball as a sport option and replace it with cheerleading.
Organising the volleyball team costs about six times as much a year as organising the
cheerleading team. The volleyball team argue that cheerleading is not a legitimate alternative
as it’s not a sport.
The head of “competitive cheer” at the university defends the activity as a legitimate sport and
observes that her team is comprised of athletes most of whom are elite gymnasts.
To be a sport under Title IX an activity must have coaches, practices, competition as its
primary goal, competitions during a defined season, and a governing body. The cheer team
argued that competitive cheer involves gaining points through strength, agility, and the
performance of complicated stunts and is a world away from the simple arts of rooting and
prancing with pompons.
In an initial hearing, Judge Underhill noted the volleyball team had a reasonable case but he
also noted that although competitive cheer wasn’t recognised as “sport or emerging sport” by
the National Collegiate Athletic Association, it did have “all the necessary characteristics of a
potentially valid competitive sport.”
At one point, arguing that competitive cheer wasn’t an especially challenging activity, the
plaintiffs referred the judge to the terpsichorean antics of “Boomer the Bobcat”. Boomer, the
Quinnipiac mascot, had performed competitive cheer at a public event even though he was
substantially encumbered in a feline costume. The defendant counter-argued that Boomer’s
bop had occurred at an exhibition event and did not reflect the true nature of competitive
cheer.
Judges have previously agonised over definitional problems such as precisely when twilight
becomes night or at what point an increasing number of beans becomes a pile. Defining
exactly at what point an organised exertive activity becomes a sport is equally difficult.
In a recent civil decision of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, sport was taken to be “an activity
involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs.” Not
everyone, though, sees these things in the same way. Asked about exercise, Oscar Wilde
replied “Of course I have played outdoor games. I once played dominoes in an open air café
in Paris”.
These articles were published by The Times Online as part of the weekly column written by
Gary Slapper

2. Gary Slapper is Professor of Law at The Open University. His new book Weird Cases is
published by Wildy, Simmonds & Hill
These articles were published by The Times Online as part of the weekly column written by
Gary Slapper