All too often while watching football, we get too caught up in the action on the field. We marvel at the performance of the players as they continually hurl themselves into each other at high speed, with no though of possible physical repercussions. We laud them for how hard they work during the week at practice to get themselves ready to perform on Sunday. But while we do all of this, we tend to forget a couple other important people on that field who work just as hard to be ready for Sunday afternoon as the players. What about the cheerleaders?

Which is why we should all give ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER columnist Marcia C. Smith a round of applause. She could spend some time this week writing about the Chargers game against the Denver Broncos next Sunday night, with the winner taking the AFC West and playoff berth that goes with it. Or she could be campaigning for Philip Rivers to win the NFL MVP. But she isn’t. No, Marcia is making sure we all know just how hard it is to be a Charger Girl.

From the OCR:

The festivity that is an NFL game wouldn’t be complete without this largely unheralded third team on the field. The last game of the Chargers’ regular season comes Sunday with a winner-takes-the-playoffs contest against the Denver Broncos, and the 28 Charger Girls, much like the Chargers themselves, are feeling the weight of a long season.

For each home game, they have arrived five hours before kickoff, towing rolling suitcases packed with makeup, styling tools and wardrobe into their stadium locker room. Then for four quarters, a handful of timeouts and all but a four-minute bathroom break during halftime, the Charger Girls stretch around the four sides of the gridiron and never come to a soft-soled, flat-booted stop.

“There are a lot of incorrect assumptions out there about what we do,” says Summer, a fourth-year Charger Girls captain who manages a Newport Beach dental practice during the week. “If people only knew how hard we work to put on the perfect game.”

These girls really do work incredibly hard, and they deserve our admiration for it. While all of them maintain regular jobs — they only make between $75 and $125 a game which is criminally low for all the work they do –  they also spend 17 hours a week preparing for each game, including a nine-hour rehearsal on Saturdays.

And just look at how all that hard work is paying off:

Don’t worry, Charger Girls, or any cheerleader for that matter. While the rest of the world may not give you all the credit you deserve for the work that you do, we here at SbB will always support you, and of course, thank you. You all make the world a better place.