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Monica Aldama, the coach of the Navarro Cheer program featured in the hit Netflix docuseries Cheer, will retire at the end of the fall semester, Navarro College announced Wednesday.
Aldama, 51, joined Navarro, a junior college about an hour south of Dallas in Corsicana, in 1995. She has since coached the team to 17 National Cheerleaders Association junior college national titles and six “Grand National” championships, which pits junior colleges against others, including NCAA Division I programs. According to Inside Cheerleading magazine, Navarro, under Aldama’s leadership, became the first junior college to win a Grand National title.
“There is not a larger figure in the sport of cheer than Monica Aldama and we are proud to call her our own,” said Michael Landers, Navarro’s executive director of student services and athletics.
Navarro cheer was launched into the public eye after the success of Cheer, which currently holds a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The show’s first season, which aired in 2020, won three Primetime Emmys, and a second Emmy-nominated season aired in 2022. The show followed the team en route to nationals and turned Aldama and members of the team into something of celebrities; the team appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Aldama competed on Dancing with the Stars.
However, in 2020, cheerleader Jerry Harris, one of the main characters of the show beloved for his affable demeanor and heartwarming backstory, was arrested for sex crimes involving teenage boys. In 2022, the then-22-year-old pleaded guilty to two charges — obtaining child pornography and soliciting sex from minors — in a deal to avoid being prosecuted for five other sex abuse charges. He was later sentenced to 12 years in prison.
In a statement posted to Instagram in 2020, Aldama said of the allegations against Harris, “I am devastated by this shocking, unexpected news. Our children must be protected from abuse and exploitation, and I’m praying hard for the victims and everyone affected.”
A Dallas County grand jury in 2021 declined to indict another Cheer cast member, cheerleader Mitchell Ryan, on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child. Coach and choreographer Robert Joseph Scianna Jr. also pleaded guilty to child sex abuse charges in Virginia that same year.
Earlier this year, a former member of the team accused Aldama and Navarro College of covering up sexual assault, along with other disturbing allegations related to team culture. According to the original lawsuit, Aldama told the plaintiff, “If you keep quiet, I’ll make sure you can cheer anywhere you want.” USA Cheer, the national governing body for the sport, opened an investigation into Aldama as a result of the lawsuit, during which she was suspended.
Navarro College in a statement denied any allegation of wrongdoing. Aldama posted on Instagram earlier this month that the allegations had been dropped and that the USA Cheer investigation found that the “initial allegations” against her were not supported by “the information obtained in the investigation.”
Aldama’s retirement announcement comes mere weeks after being reinstated by USA Cheer.
A native of Alabama, Aldama has deep ties to North Texas. She was a graduate of Corsicana High School before enrolling at Tyler Junior College, where she was on the cheer squad. She transferred to UT Austin, where she received a bachelor’s of business administration in finance, then received her MBA from UT Tyler.