It’s already been a great season for Homestead’s Sydney Graber. Most recently, she was named the winner of the Tiffany Gooden Award. The news became public when the Journal Gazette published the story on Easter Sunday.
Normally, the Journal Gazette hosts a banquet where the Gooden Award is handed out. This year, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, there was no banquet. Instead, the Journal Gazette texted Graber informing her that she had won. They plan to send her the award itself at a later date.
“It’s such a great honor and blessing, and something I’ve always had a goal to win,” Graber said. “There’s so much talent in Fort Wayne too and the SAC Conference, so it just means everything and more that Tiffany Gooden selected me for this award.”
“I’m very proud of Syd. Obviously she’s put in a lot of hard work over several years to earn such an award,” Homestead head coach Rod Parker said. “The big thing is, Sydney really represents what we stand for at Homestead. [She’s a] hard-working kid, a great basketball player, a great person on and off the court; which is I think everything that’s culminated in that award.”
Graber is not the first Homestead girls’ basketball star to win the Gooden Award. Karissa McGlauglin won it two years in a row (2016 & 2017) in her Sparty career. She was a teammate of Graber’s in the 2016-2017 season (Graber’s freshman year) when the Spartans won state.
“My freshman year, I looked up to Karissa so much. Even in middle school, I would train with her all the time, and I kind of got a chance to get to know her then,” Graber said. “So playing with her in high school, she really taught me a lot about the type of player and leader I wanted to be. I think she set a great example for how I wanted to perceive myself on the court and play with high intensity all the time.”
Winning the Gooden Award is one of several postseason accolades she has received. On March 4th, she was named to the All-State Supreme 15. About a week later, she was selected to the Indiana All-Star team. Unfortunately, the All-Star games have since been canceled due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Even with the accolades Graber has received, the offseason has proven to be very overwhelming for her.
“I’ve been putting in so much work towards the spring All-Star games I could’ve played in and just getting ready for Central Michigan, and just moving in there in June,” Graber said. “So it’s been really overwhelming just because with COVID-19 there’s kind of been a pause to everything. But I’m still doing whatever I can to try to get better and keep a growth mindset going.”
Graber had a great season on the court. She was the Spartans’ leading scorer averaging 15.1 points per game. She also averaged 8.5 rebounds per game. And in the win against Lawrence North, she scored her 1,000th career point. She was part of a Spartans’ team that went 26-2 and won the South Side Sectional. This past season provided Graber with a great experience.
“Looking back, I think it’s been one of my most fun seasons just because I think [with] the group of girls we had this year, it was really easy to let loose with them,” Graber said. “We knew that everyone was kind of stressed out a little bit. I think being there for each other and being each other’s rock to lean on during the season, it just made it so much more fun. I think it showed on the court as well, just with the chemistry we had this year. I think that’s why we won so many games was our chemistry was so good.”
In her four years at the high school level, Graber has greatly expanded her abilities on the court.
“My freshman year I was really only able to post up, and that was my role my freshman year. I would kind of just rebound and post, and I was just a post player,” Graber said. “Then my sophomore year I started to develop more guard skills, and by my senior year, I kind of put it all together where I could handle the ball, shoot, drive, post up, and just create mismatches. So I’d say my versatility and my ability to read mismatches was where my game grew the most.”
Her desire to get better is something that Coach Parker has been especially impressed with.
“She’s always pushing herself to learn something new about the game; whether it be physically; you know a skill set, or whether it’s a mental component of the game, or finding ways to make her team better so that she’s in position to win basketball games,” Parker said.
Graber gives Parker a great deal of credit for helping her improve her become a better player.
“Getting to have him as my coach, it just taught me how to push past my comfort zones and to always strive to be better than I was the day before,” Graber said.
