The first season of Cerro Gordo C.U.S.D. #100 basketball was during the 1929-1930 school year. Mr. C.W. Barnes was our schools basketball coach. Coach Barns led the program to its first victory in the winter of 1929. The team finished the schools inaugural basketball season with a 4 wins and 17 losses.
Two years later, Coach Z.H. Dorland directed the program. He guided us to our first ever winning season, with a 15-8 record. Despite only being here for two years, Coach Dorland paved the way for many good young coaches along the way.
Emry Ebbert took the program over in 1937 and was the first ever coach in our schools history to win 20 games in a season. The 1939-1940 team finished with a 22-7 overall mark. Coach Ebbert still remains # 2 in career winning percentage winning just under 70% of the games he coached with a .690 winning %. Coach Ebbert is still also # 4 All-Time in wins by a coach at Cerro Gordo with 69 overall wins.
During the time of the 2nd World War our program struggled having a few different coaches and around 20 wins during the time the war was going on. However a Coach named Maurice Klotz came in 1944 and changed all that. After a 8-13 campaign in the 1944-45 season our program took off having 6 straight winning seasons, three of those six years our teams finished with 20 or more wins. Coach Klotz still remains # 2 in all time coahing victories with 122. During his 7 years here our teams won nearly 70% of games played.
In the 50's and 60's we had a great deal of success, including three District Tournament Championships in 1958,63,& 64. We also won the Cerro Gordo Holiday Basketball Tournament on four different occasions. The program took home two Okaw Valley Conference Championships in 1951 and 1955. The 1951 team also won the Okaw Valley Conference Tournament.
The seventies were some of the best years for CG Basketball. Seven out of 10 seasons our program had a winning record, to go along with 5 LOVC Conference Championships. Jack Blickensderfer was the coach for six of the seasons in the 70's winning 134 games over that time span (which still ranks #1 all-time). During the 1972-73 & 1973-74 seasons, both teams made it to the Elite 8. These two teams are still reguarded as the schools best, four team members numbers where retired at the end of the 1974 season. Those four seniors include the late, Mark Mull, who broke the schools all time record in scoring (1,974) and rebounding (1,191). Jim Neff, the teams point guard, who broke the schools all time assist record (472). Homer Oldfield, who was a deadly shooter and still holds the record for free throw %. And Larry Pflum, who grabbed over 600 rebounds and is in the top 15 in scoring. These individuals and their teams hold these and many other records that still stand today, many people have said that these two teams and the players "Are Cerro Gordo Basketball".
When Coach Blickensderfer left, Coach John Lawson took the reigns in 1978 and remained until 1985. Lawson did an outstanding job winning 20 or more games 2 times, 17 games 2 times, and 16 & 15 1 time each. In the mid to late 80's, Coach Alex Razzo came along winning 22 game leading up to the 1990's.
In the 90's a few different coaches came and went. Dave Jumps and Sean Hayes coached the majority of them. In 1993 our program won the LOVC Conference Tournament Championship. In 1997-98 the Broncos won 17 games and 3rd Place in the Macon County Tournament.
Over the next 8 years our program went through 5 different coaches. It is very difficult to have continued success with as much change in that little of time, however many accomplishments can be taken away from this time period and we are very proud of how hard these players worked and contributed to our program.
During the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons, our program was at it highest point since the great teams in the 1970's. The combined record in those two seasons was 44-12. Winning Back-to-Back LOVC Championships, several tournament championships and trophies were brought home, a 19 game winning streak, and 18 school records. Many team records were accomplished, however one individual made history breaking the schools all time scoring record held by the late, great, Mark Mull (74). On February 20th, 2009, Drew Minton sank a free throw to pass Mull's record. For more information in Drew Minton click HERE
Which brings us to the present. Our 2009-2010 team finished with a near .500 record and battled its way to the regional championship game vs. former Cerro Gordo Coach, Jack Blickensderfer's Meridian Hawks. The Hawks came out victorious in the game, however the Broncos have 9 out of 12 players returning from last season. These players are hungry to get back to the 20 win plateu and challenge for tournaments and records of its own in the 2010-2011 season.
