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The USASF and Orson Sikes are working to broaden our all star horizons. Developing a national recreational program in our sport would be a huge step forward in helping cheerleading get to the masses. We have got to be more cost and time conscience from a business perspective. Recreational teams would be a great way to introduce young kids to our awesome sport of cheerleading.

In a lagging economy the Cheerleading industry is seeing a dramatic decrease in the number of participants that are involved in All-star cheerleading. Another reason cited for the decrease in participants is the highly competitive nature of the sport. Somewhere along the road we have forgotten about the fun in our sport. With the emergence of the USASF Worlds being the premier event in cheerleading for the level 5 athlete, the focus has been on training their athletes to becoming a level 5 cheerleader as soon as possible.

The Cheerleading industry has also become inconvenient financially, competitively and too time consuming for the novice kid and parent who just initially want to put on a cute cheer uniform and learn a little cute routine. Unfortunately as coaches and gym owners we have thrown these kids into the ultra competitive fire of all-star cheerleading with its multiple days a week practices, high training cost and travel cost. As a result the parent and child are quitting after a year or two and decide to pursue another sport.

As an industry we have got to be more sensitive to the financial and time commitments of the typical soccer mom. By creating a recreational program for the all-star athlete that will be less costly and time consuming will increase the participation in our local gym which can carry over to higher participation in our events. Once an athlete has become charmed by the awesome experience of the recreational program then they will be more prepared to do Competitive all-star.

Plan of Action
1) Encourage local cheerleading gyms to start recreational cheer teams. This can be promoted by doing stories in national cheerleading magazines on the advantages of creating these types of teams in local gyms. There should also be classes on creating these teams at the USASF national conference.

2) Redefine what a recreational cheer team is. With the current divisions the way they are a recreational team that was developed in a cheerleading gym would have to compete against a traditional competitive all-star team.

3) Event producers will need to add these new recreational divisions to their competitions and possibly create all-star recreational competitions.