It was once believed that the first season of Cerro Gordo Basketball was the 1929-1930 season. We have recently found evidence to proof otherwise. A picture was recently found of the 1923-1924 Bronco basketball team. We have also found an old yearbook/booklett from 1909, in which it has one page which talks about Cerro Gordo athletics. There is mention that CG had a basketball team then, and played a schedule with local opponants. We are continuing to do research to find out more about the history of the Cerro Gordo Basketball programs history.
The first season in which we have information about the team was the 1929-1930 season. 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. Eight out of 10 seasons our program won 20 games, 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 3 times, 17 games 2 times, and 16 & 15 1 time each. In the mid to late 80's, Coach Alex Razzo came along and 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 and trophies later in the 90's came 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.
Which brings us to the present. Cerro Gordo basketball is back on the map, recently coming off Back-toBack 20 win seasons and LOVC League titles. This is due to a lot of hard work and dedication over the past few years.
