Much remains unknown about the reversal of the cheer program’s Feb. 6 suspension, but past and present athletes report they complained about the program’s lack of support long before it received public attention for its suspension and racism allegations.

One athlete, Deborah Shaw, graduated from UCA with a family and consumer sciences degree in December 2022. She was on UCA’s track and field team for two years before joining cheer.

“I was actually not in a very good place mentally when I joined the team and I immediately felt like I was a part of a family who would support me through everything,” Shaw said.

Shaw said she had high expectations for the program because she used to cheer at a gym known for earning big titles.

“I was ready to come in and put in the work. A lot of people on the team have come from bigger gyms as well and know what it takes to compete on the national level,” she said.

Shaw said things “started going downhill” when the team’s coach, Kortlind Johnson, had a baby September 2021.

“When our coach came to practice, games and other functions, she almost always had her baby with her,” Shaw said.

Shaw said, “She is a great mother. However, the team felt like this became a distraction.

“We needed a coach who could give us her full attention. At some point, the team did bring this to her attention. Since I graduated in December, I am unsure if she continued to bring her.”

Johnson’s UCA personnel records date back to 2015 for cheer-related positions, and she was rehired each year. Records state she was supposed to work in her current position until June 2023. 

Director of Media Relations Fredricka Sharkey confirmed she still works for UCA, and an athlete told The Echo that Johnson told the team via GroupMe message she resigned as head coach but will remain the spirit coordinator.

Former cheerleader and current junior Caleb Watson said the baby was a distraction, as well as a safety hazard.

“Our cheer coach brought her baby to practice. Every practice, or she wouldn’t come to practice,” Watson said.

“Then, we have to watch the baby while we’re trying to learn new skills. We didn’t sign up to babysit,” Watson said. “Her baby almost [was fallen] on [during] almost every other stunt.”

Cheer team member freshman Will Smith also said Johnson brought her baby to practice.

“I would say that it was pretty often, and it was a concern for multiple athletes on the team,” he said.

Smith said the baby was near stunts: “There were a couple of times where the baby got a little too close.”

He said cheer is his life’s outlet, and that he ended up at UCA after an injury changed his college plans.

“Cheer has provided an escape for me from all the issues with life,” he said.

Smith said he’s “blessed and grateful” the team still gets to take part in the National Cheerleaders Association competition in Daytona Beach, Florida.

However, Smith described being distracted during cheer practice.

“It was due to the lack of organization that [Johnson] had, and that was kind of what caused many of us to feel unsafe,” Smith said.

A 2019 study called “Progress in Cheerleading Safety” found in an analysis of cheerleading-related injuries that they “were most commonly sustained during cheerleading practice (39%).”

“Overall, we don’t get as much support as other athletic teams do …. We just don’t get as much support or attention,” Smith said.

Shaw said, “Because I competed in two different sports at UCA, I was able to kind of see how cheer was treated in comparison to other sports. It was very apparent to me that the cheer program was seen as in the bottom of the barrel of sports, and I don’t think that’s fair, considering we represent the school the same way any other sport does.”

Shaw said, “This year’s team had to overcome many obstacles, and I think a lot of these obstacles could have been avoided with proper coaching.”

Watson said he’s taking a leave of absence, but that when he was on the team, he felt uncomfortable going to away games without a coach and wanted more support from UCA Athletic Director Brad Teague.

“We don’t see any other team here doing that, the football team … If Kortlind can’t go, why isn’t the person over athletics, why don’t they go? But Brad was over across seas whenever the basketball people went, but he couldn’t go to the next state to come with us so we can actually have someone that’s over us … for our safety,” Watson said.

Shaw said her biggest concern while on the team “was the coaching or the lack thereof,” saying the coach and the athletes weren’t on the same page.

Shaw said, “We felt as though the cheer program was not a priority of hers and that was understandable. … With that being said, we just wanted a coach that would show up and help us reach our end goal and were disappointed by the lack of organization and professionalism.”

Freshman Emma Palmer said she also noticed problems with leadership, even though it was her first year on the squad.

“Since the beginning of the year, there had been a lack of leadership on the team,” Palmer said.

“The instability and need for organization is the main reason why so many athletes quit the team from my understanding,” she said, adding the program started with 39 athletes and as of Feb. 3, had only 22 left.

Palmer said, “Emails had been sent about the lack of leadership in the program throughout this season, and to my knowledge the season before.

“In response to our emails and complaints, on Monday the 6th, we were called in for a meeting saying that our program had been suspended.”

Palmer said, “During the meeting, the phrase ‘I do not see this team representing us on a national stage’ was said.

“The cheer team is at every football game and every men’s and women’s home basketball game, so to be stripped of our one competition we get to attend was incredibly heartbreaking, especially for our seniors. We had been working toward this since May 2022, and it was taken away so fast,” Palmer said.

Smith said, “Initially, we were told that it was due to attitude and lack of respect from athletes.

“They were saying that we had a lack of respect toward the coach, although that wasn’t the case, that was what was told to us,” he said, adding the coach let them know she resigned after Teague had already met with the team.

Shaw heard of the suspension almost immediately from her friends who are still on the team and said it was “drastic and heartbreaking.

“I don’t think it was simply one thing that led to the suspension. I think it was a lot of problems that have built up over the past two years,” Shaw said.

Watson said, “Last year, this didn’t happen because we had a great assistant coach, Ty Conner. … He is the whole reason why we did good in Daytona. [Johnson] was not there at all.”

Conner is now head cheerleading coach at Mississippi State University, according to his Instagram.

In a June 29, 2022 post about leaving the cheer program, Conner said, “My favorite thing about these kids is they each truly love the sport of cheerleading. They are athletes that work hard and expect the best out of everyone.”

The post also references Daytona, where the team won third in the NCA’s Advanced Small Coed Division 1 category.

Shaw said, “I think that disconnect between the coaches and athletes grew even more this year as a result of other things going on with the team, including racist comments that were being said.”

Shaw said the coach was made aware of the racist comments, but “did not seem to have a structured way to deal with it directly and never addressed the issues head-on,” leading to tensions building.

“I, and many others on the team, don’t think she handled it the way a coach should have,” Shaw said.

Watson said, “That’s what [the cheer team is] talking about when they say ‘after all we’ve been through this year.’ It’s the racist mess we’ve been through, it’s the coach never showing up that we’ve been through, it’s the coach sending us to Idaho and other states without an actual coach with us. That’s the problem.”

After its suspension, the team made a Change.org petition that echoed these struggles with leadership.

The petition said, “This team coached themselves almost every single practice and when the coach did show up, there was no direction or coaching. The coach also never showed up for games and the athletes were told if they got hurt and the coach was not in attendance then they would not be covered under the school’s insurance.”

As of Feb. 13, UCA has not responded to The Echo for comment about this aspect of the petition.

Watson, who went to local news with allegations the program didn’t properly handle racism, said to The Echo that he knows the university was aware of these problems because they came up as part of an Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion investigation.

The investigation was prompted by a Diversity, Equity and Civility Concern he submitted Oct. 5 after Johnson dismissed him from the team.

According to the IDI’s Oct. 21 report, the office’s examination involved statements from Watson, Johnson “and students with a variety of lived experiences.” Some statements were sent directly to Teague, while some were sent to IDI.

Watson said, “Whenever we wrote those papers, it was about the racism. It was about the safety concerns. It was about her lack of attendance.

“It’s just crazy that the university is overlooking all of these problems and didn’t do anything about it.”

Watson said Johnson dismissed him the morning of Oct. 4 after she called to confront him about a Snapchat squabble he had with another cheerleader the previous night.

“[Johnson] kicked me off, like, completely kicked me off,” Watson said.

Watson, a Black man, said it was because he confronted another cheerleader about her white privilege, noting he had ongoing interpersonal issues with her making up rumors about him.

Watson said the coach previously told him nothing could be done about interpersonal issues that took place outside of cheer.

“[Johnson] said that I was racist because I said that it was [the other cheerleader’s] white side showing,” he said.

Part of Watson’s complaint to the IDI was that after he was dismissed, Johnson suspended a freshman cheer member for only a week for making racially insensitive comments and saying slurs. 

“How is me calling her out for her white privilege racist but people calling us n****rs and stuff not racist? That is blankly racist,” Watson said.

According to Chief Diversity Officer Angela Webster’s IDI report, “Coach Johnson admitted to being aware of some incidents of race-related conflict among team members. Students report that the cheer team has not functioned in solidarity and unity. Team members communicate negative stereotypes to and about each other based on perceived racial, gender and sex identities. The cheer team environment is one in which dialogue and actions run contrary to team spirit, team building, camaraderie and trust.”

Afterward, Watson said the team was required to attend two classes; one about communication and coping skills, and the other a talking circle about what athletes thought was wrong with the program.

He said neither class mentioned slavery or racism.

“The first class, we walked in and they would play the ‘High School Musical’ song ‘We’re All In This Together,’ and we did not touch on race or anything.” 

Watson said the freshman athlete’s use of racial slurs was not discussed.

“We didn’t say anything about the girl who told my teammate that she would have been a slave,” he said.

“It was something that kindergarteners should have gone to,” Watson said. “The people who were saying the stuff were back there on their phone the whole entire time, laughing and chuckling and texting, so did it really do any good? No, it didn’t,” Watson said.

Watson said he called the IDI on Nov. 28 to express his disappointment in the investigation and resulting classes, and that after Webster asked him to stop interrupting her, Webster kept interrupting him.

That’s when he said he wanted to bring his mother to talk with Webster, which Webster took as a threat, Watson said.

In an email to Watson, she wrote, “I have gracefully listened to your lack of faith in me. I think the matter turned the corner when you spoke words to me that could be interpreted as threatening,” encouraging him to work with “other campus colleagues” instead.

Johnson said, “I deny any and all allegations that I permitted any form of racism. … I have enjoyed my nearly 13 years at UCA and loved every athlete I had the pleasure of coaching.”

Smith said he didn’t believe the racism “deserves any more attention, just because racism wasn’t the main issue of why we are going through what we are going through.

“I just wanted to make it clear that the issues we were having with the coach were not solely based on race, but because of race, miscommunication, disorganization, and a lot of other issues, so it wasn’t just racism. While it did play a part, it was not the only reason.”

The team is still set to perform at the NCA competition in Daytona Beach, Florida, thanks to a UCA cheerleading alumnus who stepped up, Antonio Anderson, the cheer director at Sonshine Academy.

According to ucasports.com, Anderson is from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and was on the team from 2010 to 2014.

“As of right now, I do not think we are going to games. The athletes haven’t been told anything directly from Brad [Teague] yet,” Smith said Feb. 8.

The Change.org petition was started the same morning as the suspension, and it closed the same day with 4,078 signatures.

@cheerUPDATES, a cheerleading news account with over 200,000 followers, tagged UCA to ask for comment on the situation at 10:14 a.m.

Someone running the account said UCA never got back with them, but that “[Teague] immediately issued statements publicly,” at 11:52 a.m.

Palmer said that with the help of parents and alumni, “We were able to get administration to reverse this decision and hire Antonio Anderson as our head coach for the remainder of the semester.”

Teague released another statement at 3:01 p.m. stating Anderson would coach the “competition squad” on an “interim, part-time basis,” and that athletics would hire a full-time coach for fall 2023.

“I think I am safe to say on the behalf of the team that we are all so incredibly thankful that Toni has taken this role. … I am also very thankful that the athletic department has given us a chance to finish out our season and go to Daytona,” Palmer said.

As of Feb. 13, the university has not gotten back to The Echo about materials relating to Watson’s allegations or the diversity investigation.