Cheerleading

Where I grew up, cheerleading was pretty much a joke. It always consisted of a bunch of overweight girls yelling; there was no tumbling or exciting ESPN type of routines. As a result, I've always thought it was kind of silly...even at the college level, where teams do compete in physically demanding events. But today I found a pretty good outcome of cheerleading.

Public Speaking

Okay, so maybe it's not a universal trait, but in the same course where I was complimented by my teacher for having a good speaking style, I overheard him giving a similar comment to a girl in my class, to which she responded "I'm just used to being in front of people". And she should be, considering that she's a senior cheerleader for a D-1 school. I also thought she presented her material very well...very composed. More than anything else, being out there in front of thousands of people in arenas and stadiums likely desensitized her to giving a mere presentation to 30 classmates.

Anyways, I just thought it was pretty cool that cheerleading actually transfered over skills to business and communication, as it's something I've never considered before.