The Richmonder 25: Coach Loretta Watson has been cheering on Richmond’s girls for 30 years

The cheer team at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School was rehearsing for an important event that took place earlier this month – performing in front of all the principals within Richmond Public Schools. 

“L-E-T-S G-O, let’s go, let’s go,” a cheerleader chanted, before her teammates joined in. “L-E-T-S G-O, let’s go RPS, let’s go principals!”

Guiding the girls was Loretta Watson, the coach of the cheer team. She watched closely, occasionally pausing the practice to point out a misstep before ensuring the team was ready to get back to action. 

“You think you can handle the signs?”

“We straight? Everybody straight?”

“Remember, energy guys. Come on, strut.”

The girls responded, as so many have for decades.

Watson has had a 30-year legacy in coaching cheer within RPS schools, beginning in 1996 at East End Middle, now known as Franklin Military Academy, before heading over to Mosby Middle – now MLK Middle – in 2005. 

Within that span, the girls she has mentored have become sisters and mothers to future generations she would teach or mentor, she said. She recalled a student recently presenting Watson with a photo of their mom wearing the team’s uniform.

“It just warmed my heart," she said. “I just love what I do. I absolutely love what I do.”

Watson and her team have won first place in eight out of the 10 RPS cheer competitions held since 2014. 

But more than the awards and accolades, being on the team has meant a lot to the students, likely because of Coach Watson and the sisterhood she has created. 

“Throughout the years we have grown from a professional relationship as far as a cheer coach and cheerleader to family,” said Jayla Watkins, a former cheerleader from MLK.

Watson sees a lot of herself in the students she’s been coaching for the last 30 years. Originally from Creighton Court, she too was a cheerleader herself while schooling at East End Middle – which is now known as Franklin Military Academy. She said a lot of the students attending MLK Middle come from similar public housing communities as her, like Mosby, Whitcomb and Fairfield courts.

Watson’s mom, Shirley, recognized keeping Watson and her six siblings busy with extracurricular activities like cheer, allowed them to stay occupied and away from peer pressure or engaging with the wrong crowds, an issue Watson said she still sees among students today. 

“I grew up in the same projects that they're from. I know what it's like. I absolutely know what it's like to live in the projects and things happen,” she said. “But I had mentors myself that gave me something to do until I was old enough to get a job. And the one person that made sure I stayed in line was my mother.”

Watson graduated from Virginia State in 1989 and landed a teaching job in Newport News. While she enjoyed living there, she felt the need to come back and be in Richmond, especially when her mother passed away. 

Years later, the 60-year old Watson is now embodying what her mom was to her for the students she coaches at MLK Middle. 

“Without a shadow of doubt, I know what my calling is,” she said. “To mentor young girls.”

One of those girls includes Watkins, who Watson taught in science before encouraging her to join the cheer team.    

But Watkins ran into some difficulties as a young student. She said she engaged “with the wrong crowd” which she said led to her getting into trouble a few times. It also impacted her grades, which further impacted her eligibility to cheer. 

“I even got suspended and Mrs. Watson fought so hard for me to be able to still experience things as a regular middle schooler,” she said. “She never stopped fighting for me.”

That meant Watson accompanying Watkins in the class to ensure she wasn’t misbehaving, pulling her for conversations and checking in on her, and speaking to the school principal or her mom. 

Watkins said Watson also helped out with food and transportation when times were financially rough. 

“She helped me out with a lot of things, so not only is she a coach to me, but she’s also like a mother figure,” Watkins said. 

Dustin Robinson, one of the school’s assistant principals, can also attest to Watson’s connection with the cheerleaders and other individuals in the building – including himself. 

While he knew of Watson when he was a student at Mosby Middle School, he connected more deeply with her when he began working at MLK Middle as a math interventionist in 2015.

Watson became a mentor to Robinson, giving the new teacher at the time “real information in the building” and ensuring that he “stayed on track.” That same energy extends to the students, he noted, recognizing her ability to build rapport.

“She really utilizes the sisterhood of the cheerleading squad to really build the foundation that especially the female students need,” he said, adding that the foundation is respect and academics.

Robinson said that former students frequently keep in touch with her and attend competitions where the current students perform. 

She’s like the “second school mom,” he said, the first being Principal Innett Dabney. 

Watson became a confidant to her students, ensuring that their grades are in shape in order to keep them on the team, offering them rides to school and practice when their parents are unavailable, and frequently checking in on them when anything happens. Teachers and other school administrators have referred to Watson when needing to address one of her cheerleaders’ academics or behavior, knowing that the student will ultimately listen to her. 

“I have teachers emailing me, texting me, calling me, ‘Can you talk to so-and-so because she's not turning in her work, or she's hanging with the wrong crowd,’” she said. 

At times she’s working alongside parents to help figure out what she can do to help. 

Recognizing the background they come from, Watson is also keen on making sure that students “see what it takes to be successful, using cheerleading as a route.” For example, she takes the team to Virginia Union University’s annual Lucille Brown Bowl football game, where students can tour the campus and meet college athletes.

Watson already retired from the school back in 2022 as a science teacher, but her absence was loud. 

“When I was not there, I would see people at Walmart, I'd see a co-worker say, ‘Mrs. Watson, it’s not the same,’” she said.

Watson said she couldn’t imagine herself doing this work anywhere else, emphasizing that the Church Hill area is her home and that her calling has always been to mentor young girls who were once like her. 

So she decided to come back in 2023 to coach the team, before just recently agreeing to come back as a teacher teaching science, too. Robinson said she helped raise the school’s science SOLs scores by 2%.

“She’s a beast,” he said. 

In 2021, she created her own personal cheer squad, RVA Warriors, especially for students who wanted to continue cheering under Watson’s coaching after graduating from middle school. As Watson gets closer to retirement, she plans to pass on the torch to Watkins, who already works for the coach part time. Watkins said it confirms the relationship and connection the two have. 

“I knew her in her 6th grade, I definitely gave her a few troubles. Like, ‘this little girl is driving me crazy,’” she said. “Some relationships that start off rocky end up becoming the best ones you experience in a lifetime.”

Contact Reporter Victoria A. Ifatusin at vifatusin@richmonder.org

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