Nicole Schmidhamer named Central Penn College Athlete of the Month

2014 Feb 18

Nicole Schmidhamer, of Camp Hill, Pa., a paralegal student, was named the Central Penn College female Athlete of the Month for January 2014. Schmidhamer is a second-term transfer student and forward for the Lady Knights.

For the first time in five years, Schmidhamer has stepped on the basketball court and expresses that she loves playing for Central Penn.

"It's awesome playing for the College," says Schmidhamer. "I am just glad that I am able to play basketball again."

Prior to her break from basketball, Schmidhamer had been involved in the sport for eight years. She started her college career at HACC. Now she participates in the Student Government Assocation (SGA) and serves as a tutor for the writing center at Central Penn College. Schmidhamer is majoring in paralegal studies and admits that balancing all of these activities is a lot of work, but she still manages to push forward.

Schmidhamer is very close to her teammates and feels that they all work together to help each other. She was enthused to say that she felt really welcomed when she first joined the team.

"My team all welcomed me whenever I got here," she smiles and continues. "Coach Beth Baker is really nice. She's actually the one who convinced me to join the team. She even helped me to build and shape my schedule so I could have time for school activities, my studies, work and basketball."

The Lady Knights have been experiencing a rough season and are not expecting to participate in any championship games this year. Schmidhamer explains that even though the team knows that they are not competing in a championship game, they are not discouraged at all. She says that every game is a new and exciting challenge, and they work very hard to stay focused.

To stay involved with basketball while she is off the court, Schmidhamer likes to watch women's basketball games on TV. To prepare herself before each game, she says that she blocks out all negativity because she comes to play hard and win.

After college, Schmidhamer wants to become a paralegal and possibly coach a minor basketball team.