P.C. head cheer coach dances to a world hoops title with WNBA NY Liberty, eyes national win with Rams
November 13, 2024 at 10:47 p.m.
It hasn't been easy, but Port Chester head cheerleading coach John Gonzalez always practices what he preaches to his team—practice hard, work hard, give it everything you have in workouts and competition and see how far it takes you.
Living that credo has resulted in taking him far—including to a place where no other Port Chester coach has ever gone before.
Gonzalez was part of the New York Liberty professional basketball team that won its first WNBA (Women's National Basketball Association) world championship in 27 years—the first to ever go into overtime in a winner-take-all fifth game and the first time the Libs ever won after coming up short in five previous championship finals, including last season.
Long run up to title
The Libs had always come up short in the past as one of the original franchises in the league, starting from their days in Madison Square Garden with detours in Radio City Music Hall and the Westchester County Center in White Plains before reaching the top of the heap and becoming queen of the hoops hill in Brooklyn, the outer NYC borough that is a city unto itself.
Frank Sinatra singing the recorded "New York, New York" musical anthem had the Liberty home court rocking at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn after the Libs beat the Minnesota Lynx 67-62 in the historic finale.
And start spreading the news—Gonzalez was on the court at various times with the Liberty senior dance team strutting their cheerful stuff with the likes of Libs finals MVP Jonquel Jones and Liberty hoop stars including Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, Leonie Fiebich and Nyara Saballa.
It was a combined team effort that transcended the age, race and gender divide, overcame the stigma of a losing culture and wouldn't be denied even though it took an extra five minutes of overtime to reverse those previous 27 years of losing.
Unforgettable for Gonzalez
Without scoring a point, Gonzalez was there as part of it all dancing to the pro Liberty beat as the youngest member (age 42) of the Lib's senior dance team (oldest member 87), dancing, prancing, cheering the Libs on, their choreographed shaking and baking dance moves helping keep the sellout crowd in a frenzy as the unofficial collective sixth man root, root, rooting for the home team down the pivotal home stretch Oct. 31.
"It was so indescribable, the energy, the vibes, the emotion, the feeling of accomplishment that made everything that had gone on before in all my previous lives come oozing out of me in tears as I stood on the court swaying to “New York, New York,''' Gonzalez said, remembering the night like it happened just yesterday. "It made everything worthwhile, all those steps leading up to that moment. And it was a feeling that I wanted my Port Chester cheerleading team to have someday."
The ever-improving Port Chester High School cheerleading team. Back row, from left: Coach Meliza Salmon, Gabriel Ponce, Kelly Pascale, Madison Mollica, Amy Navas, Charlotte Burke, Yvonne Santiago, Melina Morban, Madison Pagnotta, Head Coach John Gonzalez. Front row, from left: Josse Carrillo, Jadalyn Moscoso Gonzalez, Myisha Cruz, Kate Richardson, Mia Pagnotta, Natalie Ceruzzi, Fiona Lovallo, Manuel Barcenas. Not pictured: Elizabeth Magana.But cultivating that winning feeling isn't easy. Because the moments leading up to it included Gonzalez living through more than 20 years of hard-earned experience along the way.
Journey over decades
His unconventional journey includes two decades of experience teaching all levels of jazz, hip hop, lyrical, contemporary dance, and beginner ballet at private studios and NYC schools. His choreographing expertise comes mainly within the dance and cheerleading competition industry where he and his teams have won multiple championships. His training and accreditations include a Bachelor of Arts in Dance from Hofstra University and various certifications from the Universal Cheerleaders Association/USA, the New York State Dance Education Association and the National Dance Educator Organization.
Gonzalez has also, among other things, danced in "The Lion King" at Disney World in Orlando, Fla.; appeared on TV on shows such as "Good Morning America" and "Good Day New York," been a cheerleader/dancer for the New York Knicks pro basketball team, an assistant cheerleading coach at the University of Staten Island, performed in the All-Star Gay Games and has over 10 years of experience as a judge for Dancers Inc., Step Up To Dance, Universal Cheerleaders Association, American Youth Cheer and The United States All Star Federation. He has also held sales positions with Apple, American Eagle, Diesel and Disney. And had to twice overcome back surgery after all his twists and turns threw out his back.
Labor of love
So Gonzalez's dancer/cheerleader gigs are almost all labors of love—as of Nov. 4, 2024, the average hourly pay for a professional cheerleader in the United States is $32.69. The highest paid NBA (National Basketball Association) dance squads have the best paid pro cheerleaders working for the New York Knicks and the Atlanta Hawks, with a rate of $650 per match and a bonus of $2,000. This comes out to around $35,000 a year. And while the WNBA pays less, Gonzalez would only say the Liberty dancers are paid hourly per game, per rehearsal, and per promotional event, and they aren't doing it for the money.
Rather than talk about money, Gonzalez preferred to talk about the love of the game that goes into being a cheerleader/dancer and what brought him to Port Chester as their new head high school cheerleading coach around two years ago.
His insights helped explain how all that experience helped him breathe new life into Port Chester's vastly improved cheerleading team, challenging them, encouraging them to go beyond their boundaries, building their confidence and morale so they started to think like winners while expanding their repertoire and outreach with ultra-polished twists, turns, pyramids and choreography that have led to more wins and higher performance ratings in enhanced competition.
Up, up and away
Under Gonzalez, Port Chester High School's cheerleaders will be taking their next big steps towards prestigious championship goals Sunday (11/17) in Allegheny, Pa., when they are scheduled to compete in the UCÅ (United Cheerleading Association) Regional Championships, an event leading up to the National Championships at Disney World in March.
P.C. won the regionals last year for the first time. And Gonzalez predicts they will win them again Sunday and advance to the Nationals at Disney World as they did last year when they finished 11th, just outside of being ranked one of the top 10 teams in the nation, inching the cheer team a step closer to the prestigious status of Port Chester High School’s famed marching band, "The Pride of Port Chester."
Gonzalez takes justified pride in the program he has built in the short amount of time he has been at the helm with a varsity that includes 19 competitive student-athletes, 17 on the junior varsity and an ever-increasing number (around 50) on the mod squad, a varsity feeder system led by Leah Yusi, a teacher in the Port Chester School District who was once a Lady Ram cheerleader herself, with two new assistant coaches added this year in Jackie Sagastume and Alexis Navatta.
Gonzales has also added a record number of male scholar-athletes to the cheerleading mix.
Key Rams and Lady Rams
"Our first male cheerleader, Adrian Osorio, is now cheering on scholarship at the University of South Florida (USF)," Gonzalez said, remembering how he had once won a dance/cheerleading scholarship to Hofstra out of St. John's Prep in Brooklyn. And, as a coach, Gonzalez is spreading the word that dance/cheerleading scholarships are out there for recruitable scholar-athletes—and he sees the potential in the team's record six male recruits—Manuel Barcenas, Josse Carrillo, Gabriel Ponce and three varsity Ram football hotshots in the returning senior cheerleader Johnny Borzoni, a three-sport athlete (football, baseball, hockey), and two of the best junior footballers in Rams ace quarterback Alexis Morel and outstanding lineman/co-captain Alber Poroj, both first-timers on the cheerleading squad.
Gonzalez is trying to work the three varsity football recruits into the cheerleaders’ winter season program ASAP—especially if they can learn the routines on the fly. "We are happy to see them want to cheer in the winter, thus helping in closing the stereotype that male cheerleaders are not real athletes and/or homosexual," said Gonzalez.
Lady Rams senior Track and Field star Mia Pagnotta, a returning cheerleader, has already attracted scholarship interest from USF. And there should be interest in even more P.C. student-athletes after the Rams and Lady Rams show off their talent in the Regionals with a team that figures to revolve around Ponce, Perillo, Barcenas, Kelly Pascale, Madison Mollica, Amy Navas, Charlotte Burke, Yvonne Santiago, Melina Morban, Madison Pagnotta, Jadalyn Moscoso Gonzalez, Myisha Cruz, Kate Richardson, Natalie Ceruzzi, Fiona Lovallo and Elizabeth Magana.
Typical hard workday
They are already ranked right up there with the best of the best in the Westchester area. That kind of lofty stature locally has them wanting to soar higher on a national level. And they know that takes work. Like close to three hours of practice each weekday and game day and competitions on weekends. But they think they have what it takes. Because they know how hard their coach works as a teacher, a coach, a performer and more to master his craft. They have come to know Gonzalez well as have their families just as he has come to know them. And they collectively know what goes into typical workdays that go into climbing out of the melting pot that is a way of life for Port Chester's heavy Latino populace.
Gonzalez described one of his typical workdays, starting with: "A typical day for me, if I do not have Liberty practice or a Liberty game, starts super early as I wake up at 4:30 a.m. in my fifth floor apartment in the Benedict Avenue section of Park Chester in the Bronx to get on the road by 5:30 a.m. to my full-time job as a dance educator for Ascend Public Charter Schools in Brooklyn. Once I clock out at 4:30 p.m. from school it's onto a 1.5–2-hour drive to Port Chester High School for practice which starts at 6 p.m. and ends at 8:30 p.m.
"On days with a Liberty rehearsal I would still clock out of school at 4:30 p.m. and drive to the City where we rehearse at Ripley Grier's Studio from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. On weekday Liberty game days, I would leave school at 2:15 p.m/2:30 p.m. to get to the Barclay's Center by 3 p.m./3:15 p.m. for what we call court rehearsal. Court rehearsal is where we practice our routines on the actual Barclay's Center basketball court with lighting and sound. We have these rehearsals early because the players then take the court to warm up closer to the game tipoff time which is sometimes at 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. Once the game begins, it takes about two hours to finish. After the game ends (9 p.m. or 10 p.m.), my drive back home to the Bronx begins so I can head to bed and wake up early and do it all again. When it's a weekend game, they are usually in the afternoon, so we arrive early in the morning for court rehearsal, so that's another break in the schedule."
Day in, day out, including weekends, it adds up to a lot of work that fits right into the Port Chester blue collar work ethic.
"And with the P.C. cheer season in full swing it gets really crazy," Gonzalez said. "Practice every night from 6 p.m.-8:30 p.m. with football games and competitions on weekends. We are currently preparing for the UCA Regionals in Pennsylvania and the National High School Cheerleading Championships at Disney World, so, needless to say, I hardly ever have a day off. If I am not coaching, attending competitions with my team, dancing with the Liberty or making promotional event appearances with the Liberty, I am judging cheerleading competitions nationally."
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