Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 949 into law Wednesday, Oct. 7, making cheerleading an official sport in California. Despite this, many people still question the validity of the sport.

Sequoia’s cheer team practices amount to almost six hours a week and include stretches, stunting and tumbling.

“I know there are a lot of people at this school who think it’s just a club or a pastime,” junior cheerleader Millen Alley said.

Cheerleading requires many skills that you must have or acquire.

“We put ourselves in a position where we have to use our strength, our mental capabilities and teamwork to better ourselves,” senior cheerleader Kit Sanderson said.

Stunts can be both dangerous and scary.

“Cheerleading is a leading cause of catastrophic injury in female athletes at the high school and college level,” said Dr. Samantha Rosman, a Boston pediatrician, in a Washington Post article from June 2014.

Like other sports teams, they compete, and last year the varsity team scored second place in nationals.

“When you are coming up with a cheer routine, there are a whole bunch of people that don’t really like what you are doing, or there are people that love what you’re doing, but the point is we have to do what is going to please both us and the crowd,” Sanderson said.

The cheerleaders on this year’s team meet this challenge.

             “To be a cheerleader at Sequoia we are looking for students that will represent this school in a positive manner and they’ll go out of their way to show support for the school for other sports team as well as develop personally, physically, and mentally,”cheer coach Kayla Howard said.

        The team is  involved in many fundraising events and they’re frequently on the sidelines cheering on the team.

          “I believe it is a sport,”Howard said “it definitely requires a huge amount of athleticism”