CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Kristi Yamaoka still winces when she thinks about the cheerleading misstep that made her a media darling, and a villain, in one jarring instant.
As television cameras rolled during the Missouri Valley Conference tournament title game last March 5, the 4-foot-9 Southern Illinois junior lost her balance and fell backward 15 feet off a human pyramid when she meant to roll forward into the arms of teammates.
Yamaoka's head smacked the floor of the Savvis Center in St. Louis with a sickening thud, stunning the crowd of 14,000.
As she was being wheeled off while strapped to a stretcher, the Saluki fight song began to play and Yamaoka suddenly began cheering with her arms -- the only parts of her body not immobilized -- in time with the band.
That sight, replayed repeatedly on ESPN and CNN, vaulted the former gymnast into the spotlight, landing her bookings on Today, Good Morning America, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. President Bush gave her a call.
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| Kristi Yamaoka is back after recovering from a fractured neck, concussion and bruised lung. (AP) |
There also was a swift reaction from a national cheerleading organization, and strong criticism of Yamaoka by cheerleaders from around the country.
In the wake of Yamaoka's nationally televised fall, the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators, which sets standards for cheerleading safety, recommended that college conferences bar cheerleaders from high pyramids and basket tosses -- throwing a cheerleader into the air -- without a mat.
"That could have been anyone," said Jim Lord, head of the national association. "Thank goodness, it wasn't something worse."
Statistics show that cheerleaders -- who today more closely resemble gymnasts than the pompom-waving, megaphone-sporting yell leaders of yesteryear -- suffer more serious injuries than any other female athletes.
In fact, cheerleaders account for more than half of the catastrophic injuries (head, neck and spinal cord damage) to female athletes, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina.
In 1980, nearly 5,000 cheerleaders visited emergency rooms; by 2004, that number had spiked to more than 28,000. Between 1982 and 2005, at least five cheerleaders died, two from injuries that occurred when a multilevel routine went awry and three because of heart problems.
Lord said the hazards of high pyramids raised concerns years ago, and Yamaoka's accident "was maybe the last straw."
Saluki Power 
