SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Friends and family gathering at the South Sacramento Multicultural Festival Saturday were graced by the presence of diverse organizations from across the city — which included a unique cheer squad.
Dressed in red-stripped blue uniforms shaking puffy yellow pom-poms and donning matching red shoes, more than half-a-dozen cheerleaders performed a choreographed cheer to an enthusiastic crowd.
But they aren't your typical cheerleaders, and they aren't competing for a title. It's a sisterhood of mostly-retired women cheering themselves on.
Sacramento Senior Spirit cheers on
Founder of 'Sacramento Senior Spirit' Patricia Cobbs said she got the idea to launch the group after watching the 2019 movie "Poms," a film that follows a group of women from a retirement community who decided to start a cheerleading squad.
"My daughters moved to Washington D.C. during the pandemic, and I was here trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life," Cobbs told ABC10. "Then I saw "Poms" and the friendships that got built out of it were beautiful. So I started posting to social media looking for other ladies and began making uniforms."
She began recruiting more women before they joined events across Sacramento like the St. Patrick's Day parade and the Black Cowboys Parade.
It's an activity that came naturally to Cobbs, as she said she was the first Black cheerleader at Folsom High School about 50 years ago.
Living in a military family, she described herself as an 'army brat' and took the bus every morning from the Mather Airforce Base to Folsom High School. It was not a smooth experience, Cobbs said.
"We got the phone calls at home saying 'we don't want no (n-word) cheerleader' and some of the kids were weary of me," she said. "But I ended up making friends and was the first one to show a lot of folks that there are more to people than their skin color."
Former classmate Marty Mccants said she met Cobbs as part of the music program, and that her cheerleading skills were unmatched.
Losing touch after high school, Mccants said she had no idea she'd be meeting her old classmate again until she came across an eye-opening Facebook post from Cobbs.
"She wasn't just a cheerleader, she was the cheerleader. I was more of a shy person," Mccants said.
A recent stroke left Mccants in a state of depression as she took years to physically recover, but then she saw Cobbs was starting a cheerleading squad. The two former classmates reunited and grew Sacramento Senior Spirit to a team of at least 11 fully-active cheerleaders.
"Being someone who suffered depression most of my life and tended not to be social, the cheer squad improved me in my social life because now I have a group of friends for the rest of my life," Mccants said.
Cobbs found herself so dedicated to the cheer squad that some affectionately called her "the dragon lady" because of her persistence.
Many were exhausted by the end of performances, though when watching back the tapes, they got to see how happy were during the choreographer.
"They all have different stories, a couple of empty nesters, some bored, but we're all die-hard cheerleaders," Cobbs said. "I could perform all day long with these ladies."
