USA Today Archives

By Annemarie Arthurs

Published February 9, 2022

Before we dive into what we all don’t want to discuss, let’s discuss how the season just abruptly ended…

Covid ended their current season and Daytona got cancelled. These athletes at Navarro and TVCC that wanted to win so badly, got it all ripped away from them.

Fast forward a few months. The team is back at practice under many regulations. Getting tested daily is one of those. Luckily Gabby, Maddy and Ladarius were able to return due to the covid rules of allowing athletes that lost a season, gain an extra one! Unfortunately, Monica is not with them first semester. She took the opportunity to join “Dancing with the Stars”. Monica has always been a huge fan of the show and she knew the team would support her in this decision. A lot of the rookies were upset because they came to Navarro to cheer for Monica, and now she’s not there.

This is when we are introduced to Kailee Peppers. She was a Navarro cheerleader and is now the new assistant coach. Kailee took the job and was unaware Monica was leaving, so now there is a lot of pressure on her to fill Monica’s shoes as a “head coach”. The team has been pretty accepting of Kailee and understands she’s dealing with a lot, except for Ladarius. He was very vocal in the fact that she is not able to do what Monica does and doesn’t have the ability to coach Navarro.

Moving into September of 2020. The fan favorite reality star, twenty-one-year-old, Jerry Harris has been accused of soliciting explicit photos and sex from minors. The allegations stem from two 14-year-old athletes who expressed it took place in person and online. The team was devasted, they broke down, and could not accept what their teammate had done.

Netflix interviewed the two boys and their mother. They seemed calm and stated exactly what happened. Cheerleading was their safe space; they could be themselves there and now that has all changed. Charlie stated that it all started in 2018 when Jerry messaged him asking him for photos. Charlie knew of Jerry from the cheerleading world. He wanted to be on the team Jerry was on and he said he was “starstruck and didn’t want him to not like him or not be friends with him” and because of that he was willing to send him what Jerry asked for. They met for the first time in 2019 at ACA Nationals. He said he felt uncomfortable, ashamed, and embarrassed about talking to him. During warmups on Day one, Jerry kept harassing him to see him. He asked him to meet him in the bathroom. Once they were alone in the bathroom, Jerry cornered him in the bathroom stall, begging him to have sex with him. Charlie did not feel comfortable with it and got himself out of the situation.

His brother noticed that he was extremely frantic and stressed when he came out of the bathroom and got back to warmups. He has been wanting to say something about it, but he felt ashamed and scared and knew that if he reported it, he would lose his cheer friends because of how loved Jerry was in the cheer community.

Charlie’s mother reported the incident to USASF twice. They felt nothing was happening. Which is why they decided to file a report with the FBI. Jerry was eventually arrested for child pornography charges. He admitted to being involved with ten to fifteen minors. The judge decided that he would remain incarcerated during trial and that is where he remains.

Social media was very hard on Monica and the team for how they responded. They were grieving the “loss” and arrest of their teammate, but all understand that Jerry is in the wrong.