Cheerleading Squad Disqualified Because of Male Cheerleader

Posted by Kevin Farrell on Dec 27, 2011 in Sports | 22 comments

ST. CLAIR SHORES, Mich. (WXYZ) – For 14-year-old Brandon Urbas, making the cheerleading team at Lakeview High was a dream come true.

“It’s my life,” Urbas says. “I love it. I live, laugh, cheer.”

The only male cheerleader on the squad, Brandon says he has received nothing but support from classmates, including the football team which makes sure there’s no trouble.

“They just tell me that if I have any problems to let them know and they always have my back,” Urbas says.

But trouble did come when his cheerleading team took part in a recent competition in Port Huron against other Michigan high schools.

Brandon’s entire team was disqualified from the competition because of his presence on the team. A statement defending the decision read, “Boys may not participate on a girls team in MHSAA sponsored postseason meets and tournaments. Schools have adopted this position to preserve participation opportunities for the historically underrepresented gender.”

In almost any other sport, we’d be inclined to agree that female athletes are the historically underrepresented gender. But in cheerleading? Come on!

Let Brandon cheer his little heart out. His team, his school, his fairy gay blogmother support him, so what is the problem here? Brandon’s principal is totally willing to go to bat for his peppy pupil, questioning why the team was even permitted to compete if male cheerleaders face an outright ban.

And just to hammer home the emotional component of this story:

As friends show their support on Facebook, Brandon says he was devastated when he found out the team was disqualified because of him.

“I cried,” said Brandon. “I felt like they were taking away my dream of being able to do it in college and getting scholarships.”

Congratulations, y’all. You made a 14-year-old boy cry, and you are robbing him of scholastic opportunities.

Stay classy, Michigan.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1267110145 Tess Bastian

Brandon lives down the street from my aunt and uncle. When we heard about this, we were so upset! He’s a really nice kid and a great cheerleader. This is so pathetic. When is Michigan going to get their act together?!
http://twitter.com/kpringologist Kindra Pring

Dude, seriously? Male cheerleaders aren’t even this new development – lots of schools have them! And yet they still find a rule like this relevant? And for the stupidest reason. I was expecting something about their athletic ability, but no, the reason they refuse to represent men in their competition is because women are underrepresented. That strikes me as a little hypocritical.

Jennifer Schradeya

Oh come now, their reasoning is anything but intentionally discriminatory and an attempt to hide an ulterior motive! Why would anyone think the state that wants a pro-bullying religious clause in their law book discriminate against male cheerleaders?! I mean, women are so underrepresented in highschool sports! I only got to play soccer, softball, basketball, and volleyball, oh and run track and dance in drill team in my crappy little 2A podunk high school! Cheerleading was the only sport for us to do!!
[/sarcasm]

It warms my heart to hear the way the football players treat him, though. We had two male cheerleaders on my highschool squad, and they always took a lot of shit, *especially* from the football players. :( They got to compete, though! Grr.

meh2

this is the dumbest thing i’ve ever heard. there’s a guy cheerleader in my school; definitely the most talented one. this is just pathetic.
http://timothy.green.name/ Timothy (TRiG)

Wasn’t George Bush a cheerleader?

TRiG.

Anonymous

Yuck yes. So was Rick Perry and ole what’s her face from the republican party. But that was UT austin. Well I wonder if we might find the contact info for the people who organized the competition that we may directly express how we feel. Just unfair.

Anonymous

They should have entered co-ed competitions if they had a male cheerleader. The all girl competitions are just that, all girl. This is the fault of the school and the coach for entering the team into a competition that they weren’t qualified for.

http://twitter.com/kpringologist Kindra Pring

They don’t have a boy’s team and they don’t have co-ed competitions.

Anonymous

I used to be a cheerleader in high school in Michigan. There are co-ed competitions.

Jennifer Schradeya

Hmmm, I wonder why his coach didn’t know it was a girls-only competition?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Kirk-Johnston/1075567931 Kirk Johnston

I don’t think the “HUB” (Historically Underutilized Business) rules they are using as their excuse are meant to disqualify a certain group/makeup of any entity in competition but rather to state that if there are two entities that are shown to be equal…the one registered as “HUB” wins over the equal “Non-HUB” entity.
Julien Guévremont

errr people it seems it’s just because they got in an all girl competition and not on a co-ed one. anyway i do understand that they were sad about it, it’s just a stupid mistake. I do think the judges should have allowed it thought. they are just kids so they could have overlooked this one time to allow they to have some fun.

Jennifer Schradeya

I don’t really get why there has to be a girls-only cheerleading competition. It’s not like they specifically call out “this is a boys-only basketball/baseball/football game” when it really usually is. Do they hold completely separate competitions/leagues where they specifically allow boys?

I totally agree with you that, come on they’re just kids. It’s supposed to be about fun and sportsmanship and teamwork. What difference would it have made to ANYONE in the WORLD if he competed?

http://www.facebook.com/pmjenk Peter Jenkins

This is definitely a violation of Title IX.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000035047164 Gus Anderson

The school where I grew up had more sports for girls than it did for boys and boys were not allowed to do cheerleading. This whole *protect girls in the name of equality* BS needs to stop. We get it, girls are people too.
If a girl makes the football team, nobody dare say a boo about it. But God save the world if a boy wants to be a cheerleader. Michigan can go screw itself.
What kind of state doesn’t have a co-ed division in cheerleading competitions? Even Missouri has a co-ed division and we don’t really view cheerleading as a *sport*.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000451850693 Ashley Valencia

…I’m really not getting this – there have been guys on cheerleading squads for years, decades even. Since when did it become something a team could be disqualified over?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000162336903 Doug Shoemaker

We keep hearing about more and more discrimination regarding gender or sexual orientation from the state of Michigan! What the hell is going on there? OH, I know, since I used to live there.

They (not all, but a lot) are pretty conservative, narrow minded and bigoted. Bummer, but that’s why I live in California.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=887180542 Michael Blank

way to take society back 50 years MHSAA
http://www.facebook.com/people/Royce-Earnest-Jr/515733979 Royce Earnest Jr

This is blatantly SEXIST. And if they were going to be disqualified because they had a male on their squad, they should have told them BEFORE they performed. Why wouldn’t they tell them they couldn’t perform before? Something smells very fishy.
http://www.facebook.com/damonross1987 Damon Ross

Awww, poor kid. I hope that principal reams someone for letting them compete anyway when the judges KNEW there was a male on the team. That was stupid.
http://twitter.com/dizzyraybabe Desiré MacArthur

That’s sad, we were super lucky and happy to have a male cheerleader on our team, and definitely would’ve fought if they told us he couldn’t compete with us.
http://www.facebook.com/mattsmith313 Matthew Lynn Smith

I am from NC, and am now 27 years old, I was the first and only Male cheerleader in my high school and was never presented with any problems by officials at any state sponsored competitions. We actually won 2 state titles because I was a male flyer and that had very rarely been seen. I say let him cheer and Michigan needs to get over its over rated snobbish view of what they think is a female sport!!!! Its a mixed gender sport, this 2012 for crying out loud.

Tags

Cheerleading Squad Disqualified Because of Male Cheerleader

Pages

Tags

Cheerleading Squad Disqualified Because of Male Cheerleader

Yo Categories

Pages