Her obsessive goal of coaching the elite small-town cheerleading squad to become national champions has made Monica Aldama one of the most popular cheerleading coaches in the country.
But Ms. Aldama, who wowed viewers in the popular Netflix documentary series “Cheer” before becoming embroiled in a lawsuit filed by a former student, will no longer be the head coach at Navarro College. Texas Community College She announced her retirement from her cheerleading program on Thursday After nearly three decades of training.
“There is no greater personality in the sport of cheerleading than Monica Aldama,” said Michael Landers, the college’s executive director of student services and athletics. “She is an icon in the sport and has built our program from the ground up with class, grace and a championship mentality.”
Ms. Aldama, a former cheerleader, was hired to teach mathematics and sponsor a cheerleading program at a college in the small town of Corsicana. Over the next few years, she built it into a championship-winning juggernaut that attracted aspiring competitive cheerleaders, who often performed physically grueling stunts and gymnastics.
Under her leadership, the team won 17 national titles at the annual collegiate competitions in Daytona Beach, Florida, organized by the National Cheerleaders Association.
The Navarro Cheer pro and its head coach were catapulted into the mainstream in the 2020 Netflix series “Cheer,” after a documentary film crew followed the team as they prepared to compete. The series gave viewers an intimate front-row seat to the experiences of the team’s fans, as they endured Ms. Aldama’s rigorous coaching sessions and faced more personal problems.
Ms. Aldama’s hard-training style and demand for discipline have inspired some viewers. But others were disturbed by her determination to push Navarro’s fans to win the title.
The show’s success has made a star-studded appearance for Ms. Aldama, whom her students and fans call “The Queen,” which has led to appearances on talk shows, a parody on “Saturday Night Live” and even a live tour. Ms. Aldama joined the ranks of reality TV royalty by competing on “Dancing with the Stars,” and published a book in 2022.
But the team also became mired in a series of controversies. One fan favorite, Jerry Harris, has been accused of using his status to solicit sexually explicit content from teenage boys. Mr Harris was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2022 after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual offenses involving minors. The second season of the show, two years after the first, showed Ms. Aldama and other members of the team grappling with this revelation.
Then, a former cheerleader on the team claimed in a civil suit filed in April that Ms. Aldama and college employees had done so. I pressed her to be silent after she accused another team member of sexually assaulting her on campus.
Ms Aldama described the allegations as “patently false”. In a statement on Instagram, said she was temporarily suspended from participating in cheerleading by the national governing body, USA Cheer, while the complaint was investigated. Navarro College also denied any wrongdoing.
She has since returned to training and no longer appears on USA Cheer’s List of suspensions. Ms. Aldama will retire after completing the fall 2023 semester, the announcement said.
