California cancels sideline cheerleading, citing coronavirus concerns

The roar of the crowds is muted this spring, as high school sports continue their return to Southern California.

There are a handful of spectators in the stands, sometimes in assigned seating, always 6 feet apart.

But under new state guidance, there are no cheerleaders on the sidelines at many games.

“Football players are allowed on the field with no masks, but cheerleaders are not,” Riverside mother Allison Yrungaray said. “It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

Cheerleaders and their parents had expected cheerleading — officially recognized as a high school sport in 2016, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law to that effect — to be among the sports that could return to a somewhat normal state as counties moved into the less-restrictive red coronavirus tier.

But in new guidance posted Tuesday, March 16, the California Department of Health said otherwise.

“Sideline cheer, band, drumline or other supporting groups are not allowed to attend sporting events at this time,” the revised guidelines read, in part.

The state is classifying cheerleaders on the sidelines, along with students in band and drumline as “supporting groups,” and is not permitting any supporting groups to attend sporting events. Under the guidance, only a single adult per household is allowed to “observe” sporting events.

“The state distinguishes sideline cheer from competitive cheer, which is permitted in the red tier,” Riverside County spokeswoman Brooke Federico wrote in an email. “We understand this distinction between sideline and competitive cheer may appear conflicting to parents and athletes alike, and we’ve brought this up to the California Department of Public Health. Other counties have also brought this topic up to the state, as it’s not specific to Riverside County.”

The California Department of Public Health says it’s a matter of safety.

“Our decisions continue to be based on science and data with a focus on saving lives,” a department spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement Thursday, March 18. “We are closely monitoring how circumstances evolve to continue the state’s safe reopening.”

The department’s sports guidelines list cheerleading outdoors as allowable in the red tier, which Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties have all entered in recent weeks. Cheerleading indoors has to wait for the yellow tier.

“I think the people making these rules have no idea what cheerleaders do,” said Yrungaray, whose daughter, Anna, cheers for Riverside’s Poly High School. “Saying cheerleading is allowed but sideline cheering is not is basically a death sentence.”

The state does allow cheerleading by itself, including at competitions — which isn’t as helpful as it may seem.

“There’s no cheerleading competitions right now,” Yrungaray said. “The only option is cheering on the sidelines. So basically, they get nothing.”

Riverside County is discussing the issue with local school districts, Federico said, including the possibility of holding competitions during halftime at football games.

Sideline cheering is naturally socially distanced, according to cheerleaders and their supporters.

“They see all their football friends going back out to the field and touch each other and tackle each other and sweat on each other,” said Leann Cuenca, whose daughter is a junior who cheers for Riverside’s Martin Luther King Jr. High School. “And these girls who can stand on boxes 6 feet apart from each other told ‘Sorry, you’re just spectators.’”

Although Los Angeles Unified, the state’s largest public school district, is complying with the state guidelines, not every county, district or league is. In Orange County, Los Alamitos High School cheerleaders were on the sidelines Friday, March 12, for the school’s home game against Long Beach’s Millikan High.

That game was played prior to Tuesday’s updated guidance on the issue, according to Ondrea Reed, deputy superintendent of education services for the Los Alamitos Unified School District.

“Our interpretation was that cheerleaders are no different than any other athlete,” Reed said. “It makes no sense to me, because these girls are more than 6 feet apart.”

Reed will be discussing the revised guidance with district officials this week and decide what to do about cheerleading at this week’s football games.

But in parts of San Bernardino County, sideline cheering is going on as usual.

“I can’t speak for the whole county, but our league is allowing it,” said Matt Carpenter, the athletic director of San Bernardino County’s Yucaipa High School, which plays in the Citrus Belt League. Officials wondered whether or not to put cheerleaders in front of the stats, he said, “but that’s more about the fact that we don’t have a crowd there.”

Adrienne Less, who lives in Hermosa Beach, has children at Manhattan Beach’s Mira Costa High School.

“My football player is playing, but my cheerleader is not cheering,” she said.

Less has seen the transformation the return of high school football has meant for her son.

“My normal 18-year-old kid who’s silly, goofy, and an enjoyable person came back,” she said. “And I expected the same for my daughter. So it’s been really frustrating, to be honest.”

Anna Yrungaray, 16, hasn’t cheered at a football game since October 2019.

“Being able to cheer on sidelines is a lot safer or equally safe as other activities that are happening right now,” she said. “It doesn’t seem fair that cheerleading is the only sport that’s missing out on their season for some reason.”

Anna has two younger siblings who play water polo and soccer, both of which have started again.

“When you live in a crowded house and two teenagers are very busy and one is not, it becomes an issue,” their mother, Allison Yrungaray, said.

Yrungaray is lobbying the Riverside Unified School District board to allow sideline cheerleading. And Thursday night, March 18, Cuenca organized a protest outside King High School.

But even if neither the state nor the school board budge, the Poly High School cheerleaders will be cheering the Bears in Riverside on Saturday anyway.

“If they don’t let us in as spectators, we’ll be standing outside the fence at Ramona High School standing on boxes, cheering for the team,” Yrungaray said.

Staff writers Dan Albano and Eric-Paul Johnson contributed to this report.

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