Sis! Boom! Bah! Humbug!

Do you realize colleges are even giving cheerleading scholarships? Can you believe that? Sorry, Mrs. Roosevelt, we just gave away your daughter's chemistry scholarship. But you should have seen Amber here do "We've got spirit!"

If cheerleading is a sport, Richard Simmons is a ballerina. It's athletic, but it's not a sport. In fact, what's sad is that most cheerleaders would make fine athletes. Watch for five minutes and you'll see. But these girls won't be on anybody's gymnastics or diving or basketball team because every season is cheerleading season.

Cheerleaders don't just shake their pom-poms at football games; they're also at baseball games and wrestling matches and girls' soccer games and most everything else short of chess-club tournaments. No matter how many hours they've already put in, no matter how freezing it is, no matter how few fans are at the jayvee badminton match, the cheerleaders are out there in their short skirts.

What's that spell? Frostbite!

If they're lucky, they might grow up to become Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. In the book Deep in the Heart of Texas, three former Cowboys Cheerleaders wrote that they snorted coke, gobbled diet pills and vomited to lose weight.

Rah!

I guess this is like coming out against fudge and kittens and Abe Lincoln, but it needs to be said. In four years my little girl hits high school. It's up to her, of course, but if my wife and I could choose her after-school activities, cheerleading would be next to last.

Just ahead of Piercing Club.