Commentary: Throw away your daughter's pom poms and put her in a football helmet

This is a call to action to all mothers and fathers out there of young girls: don’t sign them up for cheerleading.

Stay away.

Buy your daughter a baseball mitt; toss around a football; put up a basketball hoop; put a skateboard under her feet; introduce her to tennis; get her to bump, set, spike.

But for the sake of womankind everywhere, do not let her become a cheerleader.

Yesterday I took my dog for a walk up at my town’s local high school, and as I walked by the high school’s old football field, I was abhorred by a scene in front of me.

There were 5th grade boys in shoulder pads and helmets fumbling around during a football practice while mere yards away a group of girls were sitting in a circle with pom poms, learning how to clap their hands in unison.

I stopped dead in my tracks as if I had happened upon an exhibit on human behavior.

The boys were out there running around, catching passes and learning how to tackle; the girls were passively chanting cheers and waving their pom poms.

Hello? Has anyone heard of Title IX? What about Mia Hamm, Serena Williams, Lisa Leslie or Michelle Wie? Dare I mention Billie Jean King and Babe Didrickson Zaharias?

These women took a once bumpy, rocky road and paved a smooth pathway for young girls to follow in their athletic footsteps.

I wanted to walk over to those girls and say, “Ditch those cheers and put on a helmet. Get out there with the boys and learn how to throw the football…like a girl. Damn straight!”

Show those boys that throwing like a girl can be a compliment. That girls can run, jump and throw just as good as the boys…if not better.

So parents. Get your girls active. Start developing their muscles, so that ten years down the line little Susie is less likely to have an ACL injury, and more likely to have oodles of self-esteem and self-confidence.

Girls shouldn’t be on the sidelines cheering on boys. They should be inside the lines playing with the boys or with each other.

Now, I’m not dissing all cheerleaders. I have friends who were standout athletes in high school and then went on to become cheerleaders in college. In my opinion, that’s how it should be done.

Because how can a girl truly be a cheerleader if she doesn’t even know what she’s cheering about. The only way for her to learn that is to get her into the game.

The saving grace on my walk yesterday was that I saw a mom tossing around a football with her two young sons.

I just hope she does the same with her daughter.