Benefield: Santa Rosa all abilities cheer team makes hearts soar

Something is off.

One point of the diamond is not lining up. Someone is out of place, a step behind.

All-abilities cheer coach Jennifer Porter notices but keeps going, keeps counting the beats. She never stops coaching.

“If you make a mistake, you just catch back up,” she says, looking at her athletes. “It’s totally fine. You’re good.”

Emily Vega, 18, who up until the moment of this minor miscue has been all smiles, stops. She walks up to Porter and stops inches from where her coach is perched on her knees, counting off instructions to the team.

Vega’s head is hanging low.

Porter, who everyone on this team calls “Coach Jenn,” puts her hands on Vega’s shoulders and whispers something that nobody but the athlete can hear.

Vega nods, smiles and goes back to her mark.

She begins the routine again. Right on time. Her huge smile is back.

This is coaching. This is team building. This is love.

This is Team Resilience.

Team Resilience is an all-abilities cheerleading squad that trains out of Porter’s Fierce Cheer Elite gym in Santa Rosa.

Ten cheerleading teams train at Fierce Cheer, but the only one Porter coaches personally is Team Resilience.

Parents buy athletes’ uniforms and pay travel costs, but Porter trains them free of charge. All coaches — many athletes need one-on-one support — volunteer their time.

“I can’t say enough about Jenn,” said Jeannie Kelly.

Kelly’s daughter Erin, 23, is nonverbal and struggles with depth perception. Some of the moves can be difficult for her.

“Her expectations are high for these girls,” Kelly said. “It’s not, ‘Oh, whatever.’ She really wants them to do well and do their best, and she tries to get a lot out of them at practice. I think it matters to us that she does that.

“There have been times when Erin has been in other sports, and it’s like ‘Well, OK, they can’t do this or they can’t do that or that task,’” Kelly said. “That is not the way Jenn approaches it.”

Porter took over the team five years ago at the request of a Cardinal Newman High School student who launched the program as her Community Based Service Learning project.

“It was my honor,” Porter said. “I said, ‘I’d love to.’”

Porter changed the name to Team Resilience, lined the squad up with uniforms and sweatsuits, partnered them with a “big sister” team at the gym, and signed them up for competitions in Roseville, Sacramento and as far away as Anaheim.

So when Kelly says expectations are high for the athletes, Porter does not disagree.

“I just feel like they should have the same playing field,” Porter said.

Porter looks at her seven-member squad, most of whom have been with her since the beginning, and builds routines and stunts based on their abilities.

And that’s both what she knows their abilities to be and what she believes their abilities could be.

“I just try it. I always try something and I can always gauge and say ‘Maybe we are not quite ready for this,’” she said. “I see if they are understanding where their hands should be, where their knees should be, and we do it.”

“If they can lift their leg, those are my flyers, and the ones who can get on the ground, those are my bases,” she said.

Some athletes need some assistance on the floor.

Gigi Rocha, 14, is typically accompanied by her 13-year-old sister Mercy.

It’s Mercy who stands at her sister’s side, helping lift her leg into a bent “hitch” position.

When it’s time to raise arms, Mercy gently nudges her sister.

But the smiles are all Gigi’s.

Meredith Barron, 21, has missed weeks of practice after a frightening health scare sent her to the hospital and put her on a ventilator.

Wednesday’s practice marked her triumphant return, and she was in full bloom.

The squad was so happy to have her back that they warmed up to one of Barron’s favorite tunes, Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.”

Weakened some, Barron used a walker on this night, but she rocked and swayed with abandon.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am of you — stepping back in and learning this,” Porter told Barron. “It’s amazing.”

“She has some huge deficits, but not in personality. She’s so much fun and always has been,” Meredith’s mom Rachelle Alexander said.

Barron has tried skiing, horseback riding, bike riding — you name it, Barron has given it a go. And she loves cheer.

“As she got older, she started having more physical problems and that was a real surprise,” Alexander said. “When she started cheer she didn’t need a walker, she could walk just fine. Then for a long time she was in a wheelchair and couldn’t even stand. But she works so hard.”

And Porter changes, accommodates and adjusts as her athletes’ needs change.

On Wednesday, with Barron’s return, Porter had to adjust basic shapes and formations, directing athletes to new spots.

At one point, she had to think through a shape out loud.

The gym is loud, with cheers and counting, shouts and jumps. But Team Resilience remains focused on their leader.

“I just want to tell you, you guys are being troopers dealing with my craziness because I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I have to remember just like you guys have to remember.”

Porter asks a lot because the girls and women on the team can do a lot.

“They are eager, they want more, they want to learn,” Porter said. “It’s exciting for them.”

Take 20-year-old Lali Salinas.

Salinas was part of the original crew that eventually grew into Team Resilience.

She’s always loved dance and cheer, her mom Reina said.

“When she was younger, she loved it,” she said. “She was a good dancer and she liked that kind of stuff.”

When her brother played football, Lali would go to the games and only watch the cheerleaders.

“She would go and watch the cheerleaders intently,” Reina Salinas said. “I bought her pom-poms and she would wave them.”

Today, Lali is captain of Team Resilience. Reina is team mom.

Lali’s athleticism is a centerpiece of the team’s current routine. She ripped off a series of cartwheels followed by somersaults.

She expresses her enthusiasm physically.

“She is verbal, but she is so shy, it’s really hard for her,” Reina Salinas said. “Jenn probably didn’t hear her talk until last year. She probably won’t talk to any of the girls, she leads by doing the stuff.”

But it’s Ella Ponsford, 18, who is the cheerleader of the cheerleading team.

At the team practice Wednesday night, she encouraged teammates, she celebrated when Erin remembered her pose, she gave Gigi warm hugs.

“Erin! Come on, come here,” she urged her teammate, pointing to a spot on the floor. “Good job, Erin!”

But she saves much of her love for Coach Jenn.

“I love my coach so much,” she said. “She gives me hugs and kisses every single day.”

And high fives.

The two-handed slaps are cherished currency there.

When an athlete hits a move: High five. When the team nails a section of the routine: High five. When someone remembers their ending pose without any coaches’ prompt: High five.

But truth be told, high fives are doled out when all of those things happen or if none of them do.

The quick snappy connection between coach and athlete, between teammates, between helpers, brings a spark and smile to every athlete here.

And to Coach Jenn.

“My heart is just so full for this team,” she said.

“They fill my cup. When I’m feeling not so great or kind of just depleted, they absolutely are my reason, they are my why,” she said. “They bring everything I do back into perspective and I love them.”

I asked Sheila Felix what it’s like to see her daughter, Franchesca, on the stage, hearing the cheers.

“Oh my god,” she said. “I always have tears coming down. It makes me feel so good as a mom. I feel proud of her.”

“They see people clapping for them, they have so much joy,” she said. “As a mother it makes my heart sing.”

To watch Team Resilience is to understand this.

You don’t need to be their mother or their coach to be lifted by the joy and moved by the love.

It makes a heart sing.

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.