A team of girls from Chicago's South Side is dominating competitive cheerleading

Not long ago, Naliyah Saintil was cheering her brothers on from the sidelines.

Now, her dad shows up to cheer for her.

The 13-year-old from Greater Grand Crossing dances and tumbles with the South Side cheer team Black Onyx Allstars, where her rapid rise — she recently was named a captain — has turned her father, John Barnes, from a longtime basketball coach into a “full blown cheer dad.”

“I’ve got about 45 shirts to prove it,” said Barnes, 44, laughing.

Naliyah has learned more than how to make her dad cheer, too.

“I didn’t always have the best jumps, and I also used to be really shy when coming here. So sometimes you’ve got to face it and just try to grow into the person that I am,” she said. “And now, I’ve become not such a shy person anymore.”

Naliyah’s rise on the team reflects something bigger happening at Black Onyx Allstars. Earlier this month, the South Side program won across all three of its team levels at Xtreme Spirit Kalahari National Competition in Wisconsin Dells. The wins secured each squad another bid to nationals in Orlando and cemented the Black Onyx’s reputation as one of the Midwest’s most dominant competitive cheer programs.

With 18 first-place finishes since the program began in 2024, and five of those awarded just this season, the team hopes to continue adding hardware at upcoming competitions in Grayslake, Ill. and Nashville, Tenn.

“We don’t really do second place here,” said Imani Cobb, co-founder and co-coach of Black Onyx. “We need first place.”

Black Onyx Allstars, a nonprofit organization, was started in by Imani Cobb and Endigo Allen, former elementary school cheer teammates at Betty Shabazz Academy in Greater Grand Crossing. In 2023, the school asked them to hold a cheer clinic for a few months, then put on an exhibition. But that turned into coaching a cheer team for a full season, and by 2024, the two had decided to go independent, starting the nonprofit Black Onyx to expand access to cheer in the Black community.

So far, so good. Starting with about 20 students — many, like Naliyah, from Shabazz — they are up to 35 students now.

“A lot of girls that look like us don’t even know that All Star cheer is something that’s an option for them because of the lack of resources and how underrepresented we are in those spaces,” Cobb said. “We’ve always just been kind of like the diamond in the rough.”

At competitions, they’re usually the only mostly Black team. At most, they’re one of two, Cobb and Allen said.

Through fundraising, the nonprofit is able to pay for the larger costs including travel, lodging and registration, as well as the smaller things including shoes, bows and makeup. Cobb and Allen also volunteer their time — often more than 30 hours a week — to keep the program running. All this while balancing full-time day jobs: Cobb runs her own event business, SoFreaked Studios, while Allen works at the nonprofit True to Life Foundation.

The team practices at Male Mogul Initiative, a nonprofit run by former NFL running back Walter Mendenhall, who grew up in Skokie. Besides providing the practice area at its Co-LLAB workspace in Englewood, Mendenhall donated the tumbling mats and set up temporary spaces for team members to do costumes and makeup.

Today, Black Onyx consists of three teams across multiple age groups: the Opals are 3 to 5 years old, the Rubies are age 6 to 10 and the Emeralds are age 10 to 14. Though all team members are girls this season, coaches are working to enroll boys for next season.

“We’re closing the gap to really make sure that we’re providing a program that’s still high quality. ... They don’t experience any lack. They’re super spoiled, actually,” Cobb said, laughing.

On practice days, all three squads gather after school, bringing unique personalities with them.

As each group takes the floor, the others line the mat, watching closely, calling out counts and offering corrections. Older athletes guide the younger ones through movements, while even the youngest cheer them on.

Their support extends beyond critique. It’s a sisterhood, Naliyah said.

“Some days, people are just really stressed out and tired, and not everybody feels their best,” Naliyah said. “We try to give each and everybody motivational speeches, so when they come in here, they know they can try their hardest, even though they’re not having the best day.”

Naliyah began cheering after COVID-19 disrupted her dance classes. The transition from the smooth, fluid rhythm of dance to the precision of cheer’s stunts and jumps proved a challenge at first. But now, in her second year of cheer, Naliyah’s jumps are strong and she’s compete alongside teammates who’ve been in the sport far longer.

Black Onyx, Naliyah said, has made her more confident.

“It’s really mentally and physically hard,” Naliyah said. “Physically, you may get hurt, but you’ve just got to come back from it, and mentally you’ve just gotta be here, and you have to really want it for yourself because that’s how you get better.”

More than teaching technique and skills, the coaches said they’re teaching the girls to believe in themselves, even when society treats them differently.

“It’s really important for them to have confidence in themselves, to know that they are worthy of being in these spaces,” Cobb said. “To know that, if you have your life together and you’re confident enough, it doesn’t matter what you look like, because you know what you bring to the table.”

She added, “This is the reality of them being Black women in the world today.”

It’s something the girls are still learning, between practices, competitions and the expectations waiting beyond the mat, but Cobb said she’s hopeful.

“We’re not just creating great athletes,” she said. “We’re creating phenomenal people and leaders in the community.”