Athletes and cheerleaders.

Did you play any high school sports? I swam for two years (fall sport), ran track long distance events (spring), then switched over to cross country junior year (fall). After that, I had a part-time job at Waldenbooks, so no sports senior year.

Now each one was fun enough at the time. I left swimming because I was average, and it got boring swimming laps back and forth, back and forth, keeping up a pace with others slapping at your heels. (No piped in music underwater in our pool.) Also, the girls on swim team were more ... aggressive than the cross country runners, imo. Freshman year, they gave "swirlies" to the new swimmers; I don't understand for the life of me how dunking someone's head in a toilet, even a clean toilet, is supposed to bond you to your teammates via hazing and help the team. Maybe if I would have stuck it out as an upperclassman, I would have had the "pleasure" in initiating others? I don't get it. In fact, I fought my "swirlie" until I realized that with two of them on me surrounded by a crowd, and the porcelain bowl drawing nearer, I could potentially chip a tooth or worse resisting. So I got my head dunked, and still swam for another year. Maybe you were supposed to take it in fun and not fight them; my individual award at the end-of-the-year banquet -- kind of "in" jokes where everyone got a small trophy -- was "untouchable". I remember they spelled it wrong on the plaque, and my mother didn't understand the award until I explained the "swirlie" episode earlier in the season. The cross country team, by contrast, was smaller and shared their fall season with the boys team. Maybe mingling the sexes -- on the bus to meets, in stretches and sprint drills -- made the women less nasty to each other. Maybe it was just the individuals who made up those teams.

Anyway, that's my background (1986 HS graduate) reading this story. There are all types of high school girls:
...

“They (female basketball players) asked, 'Why are you here?’ ” recalled Joquina Spence, 18, a senior cheerleader. “We told them, ‘We’re here to support you,’ and it was a problem because they kept yelling at us.”

Lol. I can see that one playing out.

Katelin Maxson, 17, a senior who is the cheerleading captain, said that while she does not mind cheering for the girls, it has doubled her workload: She has continued the tradition here of decorating the lockers of the basketball players on game days and bringing them treats.

“We joined sports to have fun, but they’re basically taking the fun away and giving us more work,” she said. “The interest is down so much, and it’s going to keep dropping, until there’s no cheerleading anymore.”

I think this kind of "problem" should be worked out at the local levels. There's no one-size-fits-each-district solution, I don't think. You have to trust common sense working for the best solution that best serves all the kids: athletes, cheerleaders, and cheerleader-athletes.