Cheer is back as the second season of the hit cheerleading docuseries premiered on Netflix Wednesday. And while fans fell in love with the Navarro College cheerleading team last year, there’s another team less than 40 miles away starring in the new season. PopCulture.com recently caught up with Vontae Johnson and Khris Franklin, the two coaches of the Trinity Valley Community College cheerleading team, and they shared their thoughts on being documented for the show.
“I thought it was a great experience,” Johnson told PopCulture. “Greg [Whiteley] and the crew did a good job capturing Trinity Valley throughout our process to be able to get to our competition in Daytona.” Navarro has been a dominant squad with head coach Monica Aldama, winning 14 national championships and five grand national championships. But before Aldama arrived at Navarro, Trinity Valley was the successful team, winning 11 national titles from 1989-2017. Season 2 of Cheer takes a look at Navarro and Trinity Valley working their way to the 2021 NCA National Championship.
Videos by PopCulture.com
“It was one of those things where I was glad our kids could have the same opportunities that the school down the street had,” Franklin said. “I was hoping that it would show our program in a good light and show what we’re about. Both programs are obviously very successful, but I think we have different things to offer. So I was excited for the kids, and for the college and all, in general.”
Because of the success of the first season, Navarro received a ton of national recognition, which is documented in Season 2. Aldama, along with a few of the Navarro athletes, were seen doing commercials, appearing on award shows and interviewing celebrities. But Aldama also had to deal with many challenges in 2020 and 2021, including the arrest of Jerry Harris.
“I didn’t know much of her because I hadn’t seen the show,” Johnson said when asked about her thoughts on Aldama. “I hadn’t seen the first season, so I didn’t really get to understand who she was as a coach. “But I’m always going to have tremendous amount of respect for her because of what she’s done with that program. One of the biggest reasons obviously, I wanted to coach was because I wanted to be able to beat her because how great she was and how successful she was. But no, even after obviously seeing Season 2, I still just don’t know much about her.”
As much respect Johnson and Franklin have for Aldama, they are ready to show the world what Trinity Valley is all about. “Trinity Valley was going through some ups and downs for a handful of years, with some changing of coaching, some changing of administration, things along that line,” Franklin said when asked about Trinity Valley possibly having the same run as Navarro. “For one program to be able to be completely dominant for several years in a row, luck is definitely going to have to play a role in it. And honestly, one of the other programs is probably going to have to have some hard times. Otherwise, it should be year to year, performance to performance.”
