Overview of STUNT

Welcome to STUNT, the new competitive team sport derived from cheerleading!

STUNT removes the crowd-leading element and focuses on the technical and athletic components of cheer, including partner stunts, pyramids, basket tosses, group jumps and tumbling.

USA Cheer created STUNT as an opportunity to increase athletic opportunities for female athletes. In addition, it was designed in a way that colleges, universities and high schools can meet the strict Title IX requirements of a sport, while still preserving traditional cheerleading. With more than 500,000 high school cheerleaders, STUNT will expand participation opportunities for young women at the collegiate level by providing and avenue for female athletes to use their cheerleading skill backgrounds in a new sport.

Objectives & Guiding Principles
To create a new sport derived from cheer that will accomplish the following:

  1. Create new opportunities for female athletes at the collegiate and high school level.
  2. Preserve traditional cheerleading as a vital and important part of a school’s spirit program.
  3. Satisfy all requirements for Title IX and qualify for sport status at the College and High School level.

Title IX Analysis of STUNT
Title IX requires that schools provide equitable athletic participation opportunities for its female and male students. USA Cheer is working closely with legal and Title IX experts to ensure that STUNT is created under the proper guidelines so that it can develop into a sport that qualifies for Title IX purposes.

STUNT as a Title IX Sport
To determine whether a team is engaging in a varsity sport, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has developed a detailed set of guidelines to determine on a case-by-case basis if the activity in question meets the criteria for sport. Specifically, it considers several factors related to an activity’s structure, administration, team preparation and competition.

STUNT has been designed specifically in accordance with the guidelines for sport as set forth by the Office for Civil Rights:

  • Exclusive purpose is competition
  • Fully developed regular season and post season schedule
  • Governed and regulated by an established national governing body
  • Objective and consistent scoring system