Emanda Doscher is used to full contact sports. After all, she used to be a cheerleader.

In America alone, over 1.5 million people participate in competitive team cheerleading every year, either for a school or with a club. With so many girls competing for just a handful of spots on a cheer team, being a high school cheerleader is a coveted position; the ultimate goal of a pretty girl who can combine good looks and athletic ability to perform an entertaining dance routine while the male athletes compete on the football field.

And if cheerleaders are the prettiest girls in school, then the head cheerleader is always the cream of the crop: friendly, outgoing, upbeat, dainty, delicate, and popular. She’s the prettiest princess in the school; the belle of the ball. And chances are, with the acrobatics involved in today’s routines, she’s been doing dance and gymnastics for almost as long as she’s been in school.

Cheerleading is recognized as an athletic activity in its own right and, statistically, is the single most dangerous sport a girl can do. In fact, it is so dangerous that it is now legally considered a full-contact sport. To minimize the risk of injury, every cheer team has some sort of conditioning program that incorporates strength training to develop the muscles necessary for hoisting and stabilizing another cheerleader in an elevated formation. And sometimes, the cross-training can lead to unexpected rewards. Like trophies.

Emanda Doscher knows how to cheer, and she knows how to win conference weightlifting championships, going undefeated in her class four years in a row.

She also ran track and was a diver on the swim team when she wasn’t leading her champion cheer squad in sis-boom-bahs on Friday nights at Ridgewood High.

She liked the challenges that sports presented her, and she really liked the challenges and the rewards that strength training brought. She liked it so much she started training for amateur fitness competitions while serving in the Army National Guard, pulling eight years of war-time duty.

This past August, when cheer teams were perfecting their movements in anticipation of the upcoming football season, a friend who knew she liked sports convinced her to attend a minicamp for a new team in Tampa. But this team didn’t cheer. It played football. Honest to goodness professional women’s tackle football.

Emanda was intrigued.

Football was something she had resigned herself to watching on weekends; not playing. Could she do it? She’d never played it before, and she was behind on the learning curve compared to the rest of the team. The other players had been training for about three months. They might laugh at the crazy lady doing everything wrong. She might mess everything up. She might go home humiliated.

But Emanda likes a good challenge.

She stepped onto the field. She listened to her coaches because she knew they were there to teach her. She worked hard to learn the fundamentals and understand the football schemes and the strategy involved in reading the plays. She made mistakes, but all of those years learning cheerleading movements had conditioned her to learning on the fly. She didn’t know the calls well enough to play on the offense – she did mess a few things up – but the coaches saw potential in the former spirit girl. They saw her focus on what they were telling her.

Her self-discipline, her track experience, and her strength training paid off. She made the team as a defensive back.

Surrounded by her new teammates, she realized how much she had missed the camaraderie of playing a team sport; how much she missed the competitive challenge of going up against a rival team on game day. It reminded her of all those Friday nights at Ridgewood High, except this time the crowd would be cheering for her.

In her first game, wearing her new uniform and pads, playing in front of her friends and family, she fractured her ribs. Or, more correctly, the Chicago running attack fractured them for her.

For days afterwards, she couldn’t cough and she couldn’t laugh. Don’t even ask about sneezing. This princess was hurting.

That was when she realized just how real this football thing was. It motivated her to push herself harder. It was a challenge and she loved it.

The following week her team travelled to New Jersey to play against a Philadelphia squad fighting for a playoff spot. She didn’t make the trip. Someone else took her place on the field. Breathing is kind of important when playing football and her ribs weren’t ready for the stress of full contact yet. It was a medical decision that she hated, but there was no way around it.

Her team lost by a touchdown; a touchdown that Tampa surrendered in the second half of a very physical defense-dominated game. It was a touchdown that they might have stopped if a speedy four-time weightlifting champion had been there to guard the line. To her, that loss hurt more than the bones rattling around under her chest. That was her team out there, her sisters, and she couldn’t play.

So has it been worth the pain?

“Hell yeah! I wish there was a miracle fix to fractured ribs. Unfortunately, all I can do to heal quicker is rest.”

“I have been recognized in public as a player for the Breeze on a few occasions. It’s flattering in the sense that I have always received positive compliments about how physical and competitive we are. People did not expect to see such an intense game and we really changed their thoughts of what (the LFL) is all about. It’s serious out there! For anyone who thinks it’s a joke, (they‘ve) really missed the game!”

Looking back at her time at Ridgewood High, what advice would she give to high school girls thinking about trying out for a sport in school? Standing on the field, the court, the springboard, or the track with girls that have more experience; standing there – in front of everybody – trying to do something they’ve never done before? What if they messed everything up? What if someone laughed? Is it worth the risk of humiliating themselves?

“Absolutely. It’s worth all the blood, sweat, pain and tears endured for the satisfaction that, as women, we can hold it down just as the men do and look better doing it.”

It’s a challenge. And she loves it.

Sometimes in sport the true measure of strength isn’t how many pounds you can press or reps you can bang out. It isn’t measured by another plate on the bar or moving the pin down another slot. It’s measured by the decisions you make and the risks you take. It’s measured by the strength of a person’s faith in themselves to accept a challenge and tackle it, literally, even if it results in the inability to breath, laugh, cough, or sneeze for a few days. But even more, it’s measured by the willingness to face that challenge again; to get up off the ground and get back in the game. And sometimes it’s about changing perceptions of what sport is all about.

Emanda wants to play again. She wants to be on the field at the next Tampa home game. She likes a good challenge.

Welcome to the All-Whigham team, Emanda.

Long live sport.

I’d like to thank Emanda for her patience during her recovery to respond to my inquiries and answering my many questions. I can only hope I’ve done her justice.