Heritage Junior/Senior High School presented a lasting reminder of the decades of service Cheri Gilbert gave to the school’s girls basketball team--and Patriot athletics as a whole.
Cheri Gilbert Court was dedicated Friday, ahead of the girls varsity game against Southern Wells.
The naming of the basketball floor, approved by the East Allen County Schools board earlier this year, comes 40 years after Gilbert coached Heritage to the IHSAA Girls Basketball State Championship.
The 1982 state title remains Heritage's lone state championship in any sport; and comes with the distinction of Heritage being the smallest school ever to win the single-class girls basketball state championship.
In ten years as head coach, Cheri and her Patriots won three semi-states, three regionals, five sectionals and five Allen County Athletic Conference titles. Heritage won 80 percent of its games under Gilbert.
She would go on to serve as Heritage athletic director from 2010 to 2017.
Gilbert was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame on in 2018.