Charlie Kirk’s ‘mentor’ and father of modern cheerleading dies after falling while playing pickleball
Pickleball goated lmao
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/us-sport/jeff-webb-charlie-kirk-cheerleading-dead-b2942614.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.world393
Comments82
I've never been good at finding the right words in situations like this, so I'll use a quote I heard recently
"Good, I’m glad he’s dead."
How presidential of you!
Do I hear FIFA and a certain illustrious prize marching down the hall?
When it happens, this quote will be so much better to spin around than anything Charlie Kirk said
Father of modern cheerleading?
Yeah...
Giant absolute piece of shit and 99.99% of the reason it's such a giant grift that systematically cover up sexual abuse...
I think the problem is, you think "modern cheerleading" has been a good thing for the decades that this one piece of shit controlled everything tangentially associated to it.
And:
https://www.thecheerbuzz.com/the-dark-side-of-cheerleading-new-york-times-investigates-varsity-spirit/
But I do want to applaud you for actually using a question mark, even if it seems to have been rhetorical.
inb4 guy turns out to be a major sex offender and/or a pedophile
Nope, four years too late:
https://apnews.com/article/sports-lawsuits-business-tennessee-sexual-abuse-5095b649ad29005c84aaa06c6dc107bb
All a creep has to do is cut Webb a check, and you could open a team that young girls and their parents would do anything to be a part of.
A lot of those coaches were just randos in their 20s/30s who wanted access to athletic kids with zero oversights and frequent hotel trips.
There's been a bunch of lawsuits, but Varsity tries to hold zero accountability despite being the oversight body that's actediting the coaches/gyms.
To think that as these children "filter up" to the more elite teams the behavior stops would be incredibly naive. Hell, even just the social media pipeline from it is bad, but absolutely no one is looking out for these kids in real life either.
That sounds about right. Running an organization for kids and teens is always going to be either an eternal battle to keep pedos out or the creation of a den of pedos. I've got no judgment for orgs that fight that battle sincerely, and understand that sometimes they'll fail, but any that don't fight that battle are going to leave me suspicious of the leadership's motivation, even though it's damning regardless.
Oh wow, that's what not enforcing anti trust law does to a country
Your post links the 2024 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/magazine/cheerleading-jeff-webb.html?unlocked_article_code=1.VVA.cJzt.B1vLYzHL5868
Goodness, this should really be the focus instead of Charlie Kirk, Pickleball, or speculating about sex offenses (on the last matter he's already transitioned cheerleading from a male-only sport for chrissakes). And that's just from the first
quarterhalf of the article."Speculating" is a weird word choice after multiple federal investigations...
Have you ever considered asking questions instead of assuming you already know everything immediately after reading a 3-5 sentence social media comment?
You do understand that almost nothing can be explained like that, right?
Yeah in hindsight I probably shouldn't have used "speculating about". But my point remains that these are eclipsed by the far bigger and similarly life-altering pain he is inflicting that isn't sexual abuse when you have this gargantuan monopoly putting them through torture, self-reinforcing groups that are the only life you'll ever know and shuns those who blow the whistle, and taking away their brain function through chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
But those I juries are happening more in traditional cheer trying to emulate "competitive" and that's the fault of schools letting them do complicated throws/stunts.
I'm not saying you shouldn't be upset about the insane 500% increase in serious injury, I'm saying you're not blaming the people responsible for the vast amount of them.
You don't understand this, because again, you just learned about it from what I had posted on social media and I stantly decided you somehow knew more than the person who has been aware of this for more than 45 minutes.
You did follow links and read articles, props for that...
But still, ask more questions, don't assume 10 minutes makes you an expert
I agree that it's their fault too. I'm saying that that (what to target to remedy the impacts) 's and the far more widespread and intense trauma (the impacts) is what people should be focusing on. Instead they're focusing on the more vanity points of the headline like Kirk pickleball, though I agree that said points are very amusing.
I don’t know anything at all about cheerleading in general or what it means for it to be modern a cheerleading. I don’t watch sports, I don’t have kids, and I’ve never heard of this guy. The statements from him about other people and other people about him saying enough. I mean, he’s getting lauded by Posobiec - he must be completely awful.
The two big things you'd see on court/field is:
"Stunts" where people are thrown which is very dangerous.
The outfit change to sports bras and booty shorts.
Both direct results of "competitive" cheer ran by this guy filtering down to actual cheerleading done along with a sport.
Culturally off the field....
A bunch of impressionable and attractive cheerleaders went from having school employees responsible for them, to any random person with the money to cut a check to Varsity (this guy's company).
Even if not to groom them for abuse, a lot of people want to be seen as "cool" and create an environment for drinking and drug use, blurring the lines between adult and child in the process.
It's incredibly problematic but since it's also so cult like, very few people have spoken out about it. By the time you see the bad parts, you're already "hazed in" and don't understand how fuckendup shit is.
So wait, they monetized cheerleading? Like in schools public schools too or just colleges and professionally?
The dead asshole basically created a "competitive" version.
So while the people in this might start out doing a school team, they'll using go "competitive" as soon as able and work really hard at it and often quit normal cheer.
It's essentially the same as the "dance moms" shit. It becomes the central aspect of these kids lives. I don't know what age ranges they have, but it's like jr high or even younger.
But the existence of "competitive" makes traditional cheer try to emulate it. There's been like a 500% increase in serious injury because everyone is trying to do crazy shit
Didn’t King of the Hill do an episode about the change in cheerleading?
wait he was the one that got people to doubt their commitment to Sparkle Motion?
I don't know enough about cheerleading to understand the difference between modern and conventional cheerleading.
Modern is cheerleading as a sport, with competitions, leagues, professional predators, trophies. etc.
Conventional cheerleading is just doing it to cheer on a team.
So they only have amateur predators?
Nope, the predators run in both leagues
The work is its own reward.
The difference is a family member driving 12 hours home and 12 hours back during a family vacation for a 6 year old to "compete." They take it very seriously and it is seriously dumb.
It’s just regular cheerleading with more molestation
Yep.
I'm looking forward to the evidence of pedophilia they'll find in his assets.
It's been said you should alwaus speak good of the dead.
He's dead. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAGAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!
Ah, that laugh was good!
I was just poking fun at pickle ball as something made up by people who can't play tennis. Its the wiffle ball and exaggerated size of the paddles. A day drinking game that some take WAY too seriously.
"WAY too seriously"
"For the love of God, stop being so nice!" 😄
Ope! Yeah bud. Gotta go get a 6 pack and some glazers down at dah QuikTrip after my game.
i can play tennis. not well, but i can. I was on the tennis team in high school. i was the mascot and the worst player, but i was on the team. I like pickle ball because i can play it with friends who aren't used to running all around the court. it's basically tennis but y'all just doing net game. honestly, if i were a tennis coach (again, i suck so i would not be a good coach) i would have my team do pickleball to practice net game.
it's just good fun, and it gets some people who otherwise would just drive the golf cart and swing the club and consider that sport off the couch. like, actual light cardio. i'm not going to discourage that, just like everything there are asses who get too competitive.
Why gate keep other peoples harmless fun?
Idk man, looks like it killed this guy
Touche
A lot of former tennis players play pickleball now. Even Agassi has his own Joola paddle design and is making a league. That being said, some folks are way too serious and should just play for fun.
Its really fun
I've heard it said that pickleball is for former tennis players. And I think there's plenty of truth there. It's a relatively low impact sport that requires similar skills.
It's honestly a great sport for older people - less risk of injury compared to similar sports, doesn't require a lot of expensive equipment (although there're plenty of companies making a killing nowadays), and it helps build and maintain things like hand-eye coordination.
There are tons of towns near me that are replacing their tennis courts with pickleball courts. The sport just supports a wider range of people than tennis and you can get two pickleball courts out of one tennis court if I remember correctly.
Claiming Charlie Kirk had respect for everyone lol.
But also, I am surprised that an old right wing man attributed with so much advancement of cheerleading actually had been a cheerleader himself. Good for him I guess, I really went in expecting something else. Though, I do have serious concerns with the sport in the same way I have them for gridiron football, both are really fucking dangerous sports to have high schoolers do.
I'm convinced that a large chunk men in the southern US are walking around with low grade CTE from playing football in high school and maybe college.
Nah, that'd hardly be exclusive to the South.
I forget-- Am I supposed to upvote based on whether it’s a worthwhile story, or based on the fact that it’s such a good thing to have happened?
Y-yes..?
Click the upvote button three times.
I read Kirk's original mentor, that set him up with this TP organization, died from covid during the pandemic. This must be a different one.
I thought that was his business partner in Turning Point
Also, the guy who started Prager U got paralyzed right after Trump got into office and worked with Kirk.
Wow, an amazing spell of accidents, makes one wonder, this accident rate is real? Pronounced israel.
Now invite Jared Taylor and Nick Fuentes to play pickleball
Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!
Well...that certainly is a headline.
I think I like pickleball now
Thank the etsy witches.
Of course a grody old dude is the "father" of cheerleading
I got high from the gaslighting in that article.
This headline has it all; cheerleading, pickleball, MTV’s Dan Cortese…
It wasn’t the fall that did him in, it was being photographed in that jacket. No one could survive that.
How does he just look like an old Charlie Kirk. We’re in a simulation and there’s so many shit people the rendering layer is just caching them now
Maybe this dude was Kirk's real father.
oh_no!_anyway.gif
Oh no!
Ha-ha!
Now your going to die Falling Down playing pickle ball in that stupid little hat. How's that feel?
Thoughts & Mf’n prayers.
After playing Hide the Pickle? What?
76 is actually a pretty fragile age.
Webb is not that unusual of a name but i think i need more biographical information on this shit. i don't want to slander a dead person (who cannot defend themselves, just because they are associated with a political movement i despise) with the association with the Webbs i do know. Like, yeah, it's worse than being associated with Kirk.
of course he would die playing a synonym for "dick testicle".
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3GhN7v5SoGs