Around the Hood: Something to cheer about!

Editor's Note: Every week, Rio Rancho Observer sports and education reporter Taylor Hood looks at one of the main news items in sports around Rio Rancho, Bernalillo, and Sandoval County. From Gladiator's football to prep cheer to club sports, Taylor will dive in as he takes a look, “Around the Hood.”

I love sports.

I do. I love the numbers, and the stories, and the games and the amazing human feats. I love the concessions and the noise and the passion.

I love to read Frank Deford’s old works and listen to Dan Lebatard and watch Scott Van Pelt.

I swoon to the sepia-tinged, speed film of old-timey baseball and the deep, melodic tones of John Facenda waxing poetic about the gridiron (“The autumn wind is a Raider, pillaging just for fun ...” Goosebumps ... and I'm not even a Raiders fan.)

I love pucks and bats and helmets and pine tar and sweat and tears and blood. All of it.

I love sports.

But I have a confession to make ... I’ve been myopic in my sports fandom since ... well, forever. Like many Americans, I know three sports: football, basketball and baseball. I’ve recently become well versed in soccer, and I’m starting to figure out volleyball and hockey.

When it comes to everything else, I’d say I am “curious bordering on investigative.” I want to know everything about all the sports, and yet, as I’m constantly finding out, I know so little.

One sport I’ve become curious (and know next-to-zero) about is cheer. My niece Avery is on the Division II National Champion cheer team at UAFS in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and we see how hard she works. But for some reason, I just always saw it as a physically grueling supplement to other sports. After all, we may say “cheer,” but it’s still short for “cheerleading” — as in to lead the crowd in cheering for the team playing the actual sport.

Now I cringe at my naivety.

I recently took a trip to Albuquerque to speak with Ralph Marquez and Wes Woods, who own and operate NM Elite Cheer and Tumbling, which has a huge footprint in the Rio Rancho cheer community.

After five minutes of sitting down with Ralph and Wes, I knew I was way out of my depth.

For example, did you know there are several different kinds of cheer that one can specialize in? There’s sideline cheer, which is what most of us think of when we think “cheer,” but then there’s “all-star,” “pom dance,” “performance,” “recreational,” “tumbling” and “stunt” (to name a few), each with their own set of rigors and demands.

All-star is the type of cheer they make movies about (i.e. “Bring It On 2”). Sideline is the type of cheer they make documentaries about (i.e. “America’s Sweethearts”). Pom dance is a part of all-star that is more dance oriented. Stunt is a new, emerging discipline that sticks to the high-flying acrobatics of the sport.

Then there are major differences between “club” and “school” cheer.

Or how about this little nugget that made me feel very small-minded indeed: This isn’t an American blindness. It’s a regional one. According to Ralph and Wes, cheer is a big deal on the East Coast.

My curiosity about cheer as a sport was sparked, not just by my niece, but also by a reader’s letter I received about a young lady who didn’t make the school cheer team. It’s a heartbreaking part of sports at this level.

Then I remembered Ralph and Wes and realized, as cheer becomes a more recognized sport, “club cheer” is becoming more and more of an option for athletes. Like Legion baseball or AAU basketball, club cheer is becoming a fantastic entry point to college cheer.

Part theater and part gymnastics, one thing is clear: Cheer is growing fast as a sport. I still don’t know squat about it, but I’m on the road to learning.

Now, if I could just figure out what an “arabesque” is ...