Two-and-a-Half Minute Super Bowl, World Series, World Cup

Football and basketball players get four quarters to win their league's national championship. Baseball players get nine innings to win the World Series. Soccer players get two halves to win the World Cup. Professional golfers get 18 holes, and professional bowlers get 10 frames.

Cheerleaders get two-and-a-half minutes. One chance. One routine.

The FAU Cheerleading team took a team of 20 girls to Orlando last weekend to compete in the National Cheerleading Association's annual national championship competition. There were 150 teams total competing in the competition but 21 other teams in their division.

The team didn't finish as high as they had wished - they finished 12th.

Even the award presenter knows how intense this competition is. Before presenting the awards, she said: "Please don't let today's two-and-a-half minute routine and the place you finished in today determine the rest of your season."

There is still a debate amongst top dogs in the NCAA, as there has been for years, to decide if cheerleading and/or dancing should be a sanctioned NCAA sport. Right now they can receive scholarships from their university, but they are not recognized athletes.

The girls that compete in these competitions are athletes. They flip, stunt, tumble, fly in the air and hold each other up with such ease - it's simply amazing.

I have never been in that type of position, so I could only image the pressure that was on them. A whole season of practice for two-and-a-half minutes of performance time. And... although you are competing against other squads, it's not like football where you can capitalize on an interception or a missed field goal. Judges - who you don't know, have never met and will probably never meet - use their subjective opinions to rate how well they think you tumbled, flipped and cheered.

Girls: You did great. Granted I don't know much about it and I am a little biased towards you, but you did better than the hundreds of schools who didn't even think they were good enough to field a team at the competition.

I look forward to next year's competition.