GUIDING THE WAY: Crothersville girls track coach leads athletes to success

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When Cheryl Nehrt was a student at Crothersville High School, she knew she wanted to be a teacher and coach once she got out of college.

“I wanted to be an educator when I was still walking these hallways as a student, and I really wanted to be a coach,” she said. “I enjoyed every sport I played when I was here, and every coach I had when I was here was a lot of fun. I have great memories with that, and I knew I wanted to be involved with that with the next generation. Carol Otte was my coach in everything, and we always had a good time.”

She graduated from Crothersville in 1981 and played volleyball, ran track and was a cheerleader.

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She attended Hanover College for two years and then transferred to Ball State University. After graduating from BSU, she began her career in education in the Muncie area in 1986. She also coached volleyball and track.

Nehrt taught and coached at Henryville for eight years before returning to her alma mater in 2001. She coached middle school volleyball, girls track and cheerleaders for the Hornets.

She recalled coaching middle school volleyball and boys and girls track when she started at Crothersville and said her husband, Andrew Nehrt, was the girls varsity track coach.

In 2010, Cheryl took over as the varsity girls track and field coach.

She hasn’t coached the Tigers to a conference title but has had several Southern Athletic Conference champions.

“We’ve set lots of school records,” Nehrt said. “Since I’ve been coaching, we’ve had a school record in the 100 hurdles, 300 hurdles, 100, 400, 800, 1,600, 3,200 and 4×800 (relay), but I’ve had some phenomenal athletes. The athletes got the accomplishments, and I just happened to be there to help them along.”

Cheryl’s daughter, Chandler, holds the school record in the 100-meter hurdles.

She said the high school and middle school track coaches work together during practices with the various events, and she works with the high jumpers and hurdlers more than the other events.

“We all kind of have a few events we kind of specialize in,” Nehrt said. “It’s a team effort. Obviously, we have control of our own teams, but it’s nice to have support out there that can help them along on things that we might not be as good at.”

She coached Breanna Barger in the 2017 state meet in the 800-meter run. Barger holds four individual school marks and is part of the 4×800 relay team that holds the school record.

Katrina Christian holds the school record in the 100-meter dash, the 300-meter hurdles and was a member of the 4×800 relay team that set the school mark.

“One of the best things I like about track is that it’s individual,” Nehrt said. “In a small school, sometimes, it’s hard to put together a team. Even though we’ve had a team, with track and cross-country, kids can excel and advance through the tournament series on their own, which is really nice.

“The other thing that is wonderful about it, which is kind of opposite of that, is the teams that I’ve had here have always been willing to put in a team effort, as well. Like if we’re at a meet and there is only one runner in the 3,200, someone will say, ‘Mrs. Nehrt, I’ll run it and get us some points.’ The kids I’ve had on my teams here have been such great kids that they will just jump in to help the team on whatever.”

Nehrt doesn’t take credit for the successes of the kids.

“As a coach, my job is just to kind of guide them to whatever they’re best at,” Nehrt said. “All these big accomplishments that have happened have been because the athletes have put in the time and the effort, and I just guided them to the event that they were going to be best at.”

She coached middle school volleyball from the time she came to Crothersville until her daughter entered high school.

Cheryl was athletics director at Crothersville from 2003 until 2016.

“I really enjoyed working with the athletic directors,” she said. “The athletic directors in this area, I’m sure the whole state, but in this area in particular are very nice. Everyone is very helpful. When you first start out and you’re not sure what you are doing, people were more than willing to mentor and help me get things organized in a way that I could understand what I was doing.”

Nehrt has worked with boys track coach Carl Bowman for years.

“Carl and I worked the junior high meets, and the junior high coaches worked our meets, and everybody jumped in there together,” Nehrt said.

Nehrt said adding a second gymnasium when the school was remodeled in 2003 was a big help.

“The only thing that I think that has changed with athletics would be that our team sizes seem to be a little bit smaller,” she said. “I really don’t know why that is. I don’t know if more kids are working instead of playing sports or what the reasoning for that is.

“I feel like we’re building some bigger teams, and in the past few years, our teams are starting to grow a little bit more, so maybe that trend is going on the up. But the athletes are still very willing to put in the work, and the athletes we’re getting we’re still turning out some really great athletes. We’ve had some kids recently that are going to college to play sports. Breanna was an All-American, so we’ve had some really great successes.”

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