The Southsider Voice
Visit us at these places!
  • Home
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • Sports
    • Car Nutz
    • Stilley Goes Trackside
    • Southside Deaths
    • Personal Recollections
    • Reminiscing
  • About the Voice
  • Advertising
  • Contact
  • Newspaper Archive
  • Classifieds

Hall of Fame coach stresses hard work

11/8/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
SOUTHSIDE VOICE PHOTO BY AL STILLEY Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Nikki Cerbone is in her ninth year as an assistant girls basketball coach at Franklin Central.
Picture
INDIANA BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME PHOTO Cerbone, a 1987 Indiana All-Star, holds Center Grove High School’s all-time scoring record.
PictureBUTLER UNIVERSITY SPORTS INFORMATION PHOTO Nikki (Anderson) Cerbone drives around an opponent during her days as a Butler Bulldog.
By Al Stilley
Senior staff writer

Franklin Central’s girls basketball team is being assisted by one of this year’s inductees into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.

Assistant coach Nikki (Anderson) Cerbone, a 1987 Indiana All-Star, was inducted in April during an awards dinner on the Southside. 

“Coaching gives me the opportunity to give back to the girls the love that I have for the game,” Cerbone said a few days before the season began. “You love the players and hope that they enjoy and love the game that I love.”

For the ninth consecutive season at Franklin Central, Cerbone brings her high school AAU and collegiate experiences to the Flashes and to head coach Mike Hacker.

“Hard work,” Cerbone replied. “Nothing can replace that, no matter what they may do. Fundamentals are the foundation of the game. I want them to play hard and love the game.”

As an assistant, she has helped in guiding the Flashes to 92 wins and two sectional championships before this season began.

Her responsibilities include various administrative duties, helping with practices, drills and game strategies.
“We really work well together,” Cerbone said. “He (Hacker)is very receptive and open-minded to new ideas. He’s very good in making sure we speak up.”

Cerbone enjoyed an outstanding career as a player at Center Grove and Butler, never missing a game in eight years. She played in 81 high school games and 110 collegiate games.

She graduated from Center Grove in 1987 after setting the Trojans’ all-time career scoring record of 1,137 points, which still stands. She averaged more than 20 points and 10 rebounds in her last two years for coach Mike Swango. She earned 10 varsity letters – four each in basketball and volleyball and two in track.
At Butler she scored 1,128 points, hit 81 percent of her free throws (196-of-240) and had a single-game high of 32 points.

She was on Indiana’s first AAU girls 16-and-under team – coached by her father, Ed Anderson, and sponsored by Love’s Carpets – which won the national championship.

She later teamed with Seymour’s Teri Moren in the first two-on-two AAU national tourney. Moren is a former University of Indianapolis coach and current Indiana University coach.

Cerbone was honored by the Hall of Fame in 2012 as a member of the 2012 Silver Anniversary Indiana All-Star team of 1987.

Her basketball days began by playing with older brother Terry against other boys in her neighborhood, where learned all about toughness, which carried her through high school and college.

She majored in speech and minored in business at Butler. She recalled that her college choices boiled down between Southern Illinois and Butler, where she felt more connected to the players and coaches.

With no WNBA in existence, the only future to play beyond college was overseas in Europe, which did not appeal to her. 

She returned to Center Grove Schools as eighth-grade coach while working on her education degree. She then taught and coached at Greenwood High alongside head coach Jerry Beasley. She took a break from coaching to have her third child before returning to coaching at Franklin Central and teaching at Franklin Township Middle School West.

Nikki and husband Bob have three children; Anthony, a junior at Ball State University; Jake, a freshman at Indiana University; and Justin, a junior at FCHS.

Cerbone is the third Trojan to be inducted, following 2012 inductee, 1965 graduate Steve Witty, a two-time state championship basketball coach at Ben Davis, and 2014 inductee, 1979 graduate, Lisa (Robertson) Wilson, the school’s first Indiana All-Star and a standout at Indiana Wesleyan.
​
(Editor’s note: Kevin Conrad of the Center Grove Sports Network contributed to this article.)

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    Arts & Entertainment
    Lead Story
    Sports: 500
    Sports: Basketball
    Sports: Track

    RSS Feed

 DROP OFF: The Toy Drop 6025 Madison Ave., Suite D
Indianapolis, IN  46227  |  317-781-0023
MAILING ADDRESS: P.O. Box 17187, Indianapolis, IN 46217

ads@southsidervoice.com | news@southsidervoice.com
Website by IndyTeleData, Inc.