Cheerleading is more than a sport, its a lifestyle.

What does it take to be an athlete? Does it depend on the sport that you chose to do? Does being a basketball player or a football player make you an athlete? It seems that any physical activity that involves an object such as a basketball, or a football, is automatically considered a sport. Something way over-looked in the world of sports that is physical activity to the core, is in fact cheerleading. To most people, the first thought that comes to mind when they hear the word "cheerleading" is a bunch of girls that jump up and down, screaming and kicking, cheering on their team, and leading the crowd in chants. This is very true. However, there is a competitive side of cheerleading that a lot of people are not aware of. There is a difference between cheering at a football game, and competing. Competitive cheerleading involves Middle school, High School, College, and the most popular, All-Star teams. Most cheerleaders begin cheering at a very young age, and if they are dedicated and have a passion for it, will continue to be involved with cheerleading for a very long time. Competitive Cheerleading is when a team practices all year round, to put together a 2:30 routine, travel locally and nationally, and compete with teams from all around. These routines consist of tumbling, which is gymnastics' minus the bars, and beams. As well as tumbling, there is a section that includes stunting, jumps, dance, cheer, and transitions to give a visual affect. It's hard to put together the amount of time that is put into creating these routines, when they can only be 2:30 long. Teams usually come together around May, and hold try-outs. After try-outs, the members who make the squad begin practicing throughout the summer, until it is competition season, which starts usually in October, and goes all the way to April. Competitive Cheerleading has turned into a lifestyle and almost like a job for many of the athletes, as well as the coaching staff. Hard to believe, that cheerleading is still not considered a sport to many people. There is so much time, and hard work put into it, that it becomes an insult to not only me, but to other cheerleaders.

Slippery Rock University Cheerleaders are one of the best college cheer teams in the nation. I’m sure, that a lot of people that go to Slippery Rock, who don’t know much of anything about cheerleading would have never known. If you attended football, or basketball games, the cheerleaders are there, and of course, they are cheering. But with the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators AACCA there a rules and regulations that every cheerleading team must follow for indoor/outdoor cheering at games. So SRU cheerleaders have certain restrictions. At games, they can only perform basic stunting. If you watch them perform at a game, and see them perform their routine for nationals, there is a big difference.

This video is from a football game at SRU, were the cheerleaders show off their stunting skills by doing basket tosses in a ripple, and ending with a simple cheer.



Slippery Rock has two competing teams, one is all-girl, and the other is co-ed. SRU is nationally known for being one of the best college cheer teams, winning many nationals and being known as a cheer power house. In 2010, SRU's All-girl squad won 1st place in their division and co-ed took second place. Both teams practice all year round for the College Cheerleading and Dance Team National Championship. Nationals take place in Florida in January.UCA

Here is video of SRU All-girl doing one of their most popular cheers. They also do this cheer at nationals for the opening of their routine.



This video show's their winning performance at nationals. As you can see, they start off with the cheer that is shown in the above video, and they are scored on their ability to lead the crowd.

One of the current captains for the squad, Melissa Nicola, has been a member of Rock-All Girl for 3 years. Melissa is from West Mifflin PA, which is about 15 minutes away from Pittsburgh PA. She began cheerleading around the age of 10, and cheered for West Mifflin teams all the way until here senior year of high shool, were she was also, captain there. Along with West Mifflin and Slippery Rock, Melissa and I also cheered together on an All-Star team called Hotcheer and she recently was a member of Pittsburgh Superstars . With her strong background and love for cheerleading, Melissa feels that cheerleading not being considered a sport is a joke. With graduation coming up in December, her days for cheering at Slippery are becoming Slim. Melissa plans on still being involved with cheerleading, and wants to become a coach.

This video show's Melissa doing her standing tuck. One of the requirements that you need to make Rock All-Girl is a standing tuck, and Melissa is a pro at it.


Being a captain is like a job. Not only do you have to keep the team together, but you have to be a role model and a hard worker at practice. With Melissa's dedication to cheering at SRU, she deserves the title as captain. Here is a video of Rachelle Turner and Cindy Lynn, members of Rock-Girl, talking about Melissa and her role as captain and how they feel about her.

Ribbon Cutting and Dedication ceremony for the new and beautiful WSRUTV studio.

On October 28th, the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new WSRUTV studio took place in Maltbly at 3:30pm. I arrived to Maltby about 15 minutes before the ceremony began. It was a small crowd, around 30 people, that gathered in the lobby awaiting for the ceremony to begin. President Smith was in attendance, as well as students, and faculty members, mainly from the communications department.

Dr.Flynn opened up the Ceremony with a brief speech about WSRUTV and its progress. He explains how the studio serves as a broadcasting outlet for WSRUTV and a academic lavatory, for students with media aspirations of Media production. The studio serves for a number of projects that take place at SRU and many upcoming students are amazed by the studio and what it has to offer.



President Smith gave a speech about how he wants students to get involved, and how important student involvement is. President smith feels that the involvement of us students is a great way to improve leadership at SRU.

President of WSRUTV Chelsey Rovesti and Vice President Zack Tanner, shared their thoughts about how they feel about the new studio. Chelsey is graduating this semester and Zack will be graduating in the spring. Both of them hope to pass down their works to other students who are involved with WSRUTV and to keep the organization successful.



The Ceremony ended around 4pm. It was brief, and right to the point. I very much enjoyed it. It was very welcoming and casual. The staff and members of WSRUTV are very nice and are doing a great job. Here is a clip of the Ribbon being cut by President Smith, Chelsey, and Zack.



Here are some photo's of the ceremony, which include the preparation of the cut, and some pictures of the studio itself. The studio is beautiful! Set up in a very professional style and really gives you the atmosphere of being in a television production studio.

When it comes to dining at Slippery Rock, were will you choose?

View Dining at SRU in a larger map

Construction of the New University Union!

Currently at Slippery Rock University, there is construction being done for the new and upcoming University Union. The new union is being built were the old dorms "Bard" and "Harner" used to be. It is expected to be complete in 2012!

SRU'S Open Mic Night 2010

Guns in the US. To Ban or not to Ban?

Statics There is an issue that i feel is not really brought up a lot and that is the issue with US citizens owning handguns. Do they have the right to own for their own safety? What if a person is plotting to commit a terrible crime while using their owned handgun? Could this have been prevented? My argument is : Are guns simply for protection? Obviously, these were created to kill something or someone, opposed to them being created for protection. According to the Violence Policy Center (VPC), the United States leads the industrialized world in firearms violence of all types, mostly homicides, suicides, and unintentional deaths. Most of the violence involves the use of a handgun. Handguns are easily concealed, engineeres for maximum lethality, relatively inexpensive, and easy to acquire. On average, handguns are used in nearly 70 percent of firearm suicides, and 80 percent of firearm homicides. The United States has not so much a firearms problem as a handgun problem.

According to the Violence Policy Center, the mythology woven around the handgun by the gun lobby clouds the reality that a handgun is a consumer product that ought to be judged and regulated by the same standards applied to all other products.However, the firearms industry is exempt from basic federal consumer product health and safety regulation.This link further more explains some statics and reasons as to why guns ought to be banned. VPC

Each state in the US has a different policy that deals with ownership of handguns State Laws for hand guns .
State Laws

I found this link the most interesting because it has a bunch of different points of views and personal opinons on the issue with handguns Create Debate .Create Debate

This link talks about if anyone is really safe, and if banning guns will help prevent violence or cause more.
 Will you be safe .

This link involves the supreme court and the issue with banning handguns. Supreme court.

Interview Magazine -Underated!

Interview Magazine is an online website that is an update on todays fashion, movies, music, art, film, culture and so forth. The magazine itself was created by Andy Warhol in 1969. It became very popular and spread quickly. Afte Warhol died, the magazine was still in effect. It then became geared towards the fashion elite.

I personally have never heard or have seen this magazine. I probably have, but over looked it. The website is very catchy and interesting. The writing on the site was easily readable, and understandable. Although there was alot of information on the site, it was easy to understand and to navigate through. There was a headline of links that lead to different articles about fashion, movie, film, arts, culture and more. Each page had interesting articles that were in good length. Some articles on site are long and not everyone wants to sit and read. I really liked how the articles were well written and enjoyable to read.

I think that the site was very appropiate for an online magazine. Although isnt like a traditional and portable magazine, it still provides just as much information and pictures, if not more. The articles were written to be made understandable. They are not written in a research paper format and keeps you interested, and wanting to read more.

Another pleasant thing about the website is that it is easy to navigate through. I feel as is my 66 year old grandmother was to be on this site, she would be able to handle it with ease. Some websites are just pure nonsense, full of clutter and hard to find the information that you are looking for, and i feel that Interview magazine is a very good example of simplicity and yet full of information that is easy to find. I like the layout of the site. The page is simple, white background, black font. There is a search box right at the top of the page which make it helpful to find exactly what you may be looing for.There are pictures that are very fashionista and i am into all of that! http://interviewmagazine.com/fashion/

There are alot of videos and audios. The thing that i like about how the setup is, is that there are only a few videos on display, and there is the alphabet at the bottom of the page which allows you to search for certain videos or artist, directors, etc. http://interviewmagazine.com/media/

The site is very active. There is a newsletter that you could recieve with updates on the list of topics on the site. Interiew magazine allows you to join and be apart of the website, and this allows people to interract with others worldwide. There is also a calander link, that provides you with specific dates with events that take place and so forth. http://interviewmagazine.com/calendar/

The homepage has a link to their facebook page as well that has almost 40,000 people who like the page, which leads me to surely believe that Interview Magazine is very popular, and more know than i thought it would be. Facebook/Interiew Magazine