'Cheer' nabbed 6 Emmy nods. Coach Monica Aldama says the group text is poppin'
In an impressive showing that could only rival Morgan Simianer's twists while being catapulted into the air, the Netflix docuseries "Cheer," which tumbled full force into the zeitgeist, landed six Emmy nominations on Tuesday.
The six-part series, which premiered in January and followed the grit, hardship and triumph of the Navarro College cheerleading team in the small town of Corsicana, Texas, was nominated for outstanding unstructured reality program, as well as for cinematography and directing for a reality program, among others.
The Times spoke with the team's coach, Monica Aldama, from her Navarro College office about the impressive showing. (The following has been edited for clarity and condensed.)
How did you get the news? And please tell me what the group text is like right now. Is Jerry losing it?
With"Cheer" scoring six nominations, how would you say that compares to nationals?
With a little more hindsight, how would you describe the whirlwind of the popularity this show achieved? I feel like it must be like cheerleading, being like flung into the air, and like, hoping you land OK.
In what ways did your life change and how vigilant did you have to be in making sure it didn't change too much?
Did you find that you were extra concerned and protective of what this sudden fame would do to your kids?
How have you been coping with how this pandemic has upended your world, the sport?
I know personally for myself, I took that entire week to just to mourn it and be sad and allow myself to be sad. Then I had to pick myself back up and start moving forward and thinking about the future and working on this year's team. It's a constant change from week to week and what we're planning for in the future and then what's happening. I'm used to knowing everything that's going on and always having a plan, so I'm trying to allow myself to relax a little bit and not get so uptight about the daily changing. My kids will be back here, the new team, in just a few weeks, and we're going to plan practices appropriately to properly social distance and put ourselves in smaller little pods, just kind of take it week by week. Our long-term goal is to be able to compete next spring. So we want to make sure that if we have to sacrifice some of the things that we normally do in the fall to make sure we get there in the spring, then we're willing to do that. We just want to be safe.
