Let Stunt Be Seen: How An Emerging Sport Is Taking Strides To Become NCAA

Let Stunt Be Seen : How an emerging sport is taking strides to become NCAA

STUNT has recently applied for and is currently in the process to becoming an NCAA “emerging sport”.

“STUNT is a head-to-head game between two teams who execute skills-based routines in various categories – partner stunts, jumps and tumbling, pyramids and tosses, and team routines. Scoring is consistent with other sports”(stuntthesport.org).

Becoming an emerging sport would result in this women’s sport being recognized by the NCAA and providing schools with more athletic opportunities for a big majority of women, while also providing more sport-sponsorship options for universities/institutions.

For those already involved with sport, this would also allow current STUNT athletes the opportunity to achieve NCAA championship status.

This process too begin this transition, started around April 2019 and is still continuing now in 2023. So far, this it the official timeline according to STUNT’s official website :

Starting in August 2019, Stunt first submitted the emerging sport application to the CWA (Committee on Women’s Athletics). This application was a culmination of 10 years of the commitment of many administrators and coaches from all around the United States.

During this time, the sport only had 25 NCAA schools which has now increased to 42 in the 2022 season. In April 2020, the same committee recommended STUNT. This was mainly due to the Committee members noticing an increase in the number NCAA sponsorships STUNT was starting to get.

By April 2021, Division two (DII) management council approved a sponsorship with STUNT, and when July 2021 came along, the DII council officially approved the sponsorship of the sport, while The management Council recommended that the presidents council sponsor the legislation for the sport.This would mean that there would be establishes legislation for the sport related to their recruiting, amateurism, financials aid, and so on.

During this, USA Cheer, a coma pant who helps run STUNT, also later shared the news on August 2021 about the DI and DII sponsorship. Many were excited to hear such great news regarding the sports positive movements but, within this same month the DII prioritized convention proposals considering constitutional review, and seven proposals including STUNT were put on pause. They decided they wanted to reevaluate other proposals after the convention surrounding the NCAA’s constitution.

Moving along, the management council approved legislative and at the 2023 NCAA convention to add STUNT as an emerging sport for Women. The committee also continued to notice and was pleased with the amount of member institutions sponsoring stunt, and participating in the sport. Seeing an increase in not only college students playing stunt, but also the amount of athletes in high school or club participating. By May 2022, Division one (DI) council approved the STUNT sports proposal.

Fast Forwarding to April 2022, the DII council sponsored STUNT for the emerging sports for women, the CWA reaffirmed recommendation for the sport to division councils, and Division three (DIII) presidents and management council approved legislative proposals to add STUNT at the NCAA convention.

Now, in 2023 STUNT was/ is still having to continuously prove themselves. Just this past week STUNT athletes college, high school, and younger have had to come together from all walks of life and spread the concern about the postponing of the vote to pass STUNT into emerging status for another time.

Due to the similarities between Women’s Acrobatics (Acro) and STUNT there was pause on the vote regarding the proposal for STUNT within the NCAA. This has been discouraging to not only college STUNT athletes around the world, but also to our own Vanguard Stunt team. “ It’s definitely frustrating considering how far the sport has come, it feels as though we’re taking steps back rather than forward”, says VU Stunt Athlete, Ashlee Hildeman.

Vanguard Stunt at NAIA nationals by Vanguard University

To raise awareness to this discouraging event in the timeline, STUNT athletes are sharing their stories and videos to the hashtag #LetStuntBeSeen. From using this hashtag, Athletes have been able to cause not only a great movement within Women’s Athletics, but also cause great movements within the3 status of the vote.

On January 14, 2023, It was announced by the official STUNT instagram that the sport and its athletes would finally be taking that step forward! STUNT officially has moved forward with NCAA as an emerging sport, and the 2023-6 approval has been passed.

Luckily, with the help of so many the spread of this hashtag was able to provide a platform where STUNT could be heard and get the overall recognition it needs so that they can give these women not only representation they’ve earned, but also take the sport to the next level!