Before she ever stepped into a uniform, before any sideline stats-keeper with a folding chair and No. 2 pencil scribbled her progress, Cierra Brooks’ basketball numbers told her story.

She was 7; the backyard goal was 10 feet. Two of her brothers, William and Christopher, weren’t lowering it for a girl. “That’s the earliest I can remember playing,” she says. “We had a 10-foot goal, and I was always better than my brothers. I was always outdoors. As long as I was allowed to be outside, I was always playing.”

When she took her game inside, at Mount Holly Middle School, the 5-foot-7 guard added AAU ball with the Mount Holly Stars, until her senior year when she played for a team in Hickory.

Two AAU teams equals more game time.

“With AAU, we traveled a lot throughout the weekends, like multiple games on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays,” she says, “and you play three or four games in one day.”

It wasn’t tiring. “It was more like, this is my everyday life. This is what I do,” she says. “That’s what happens when you truly love the game of basketball. During that time, I always thought it was fun. It didn’t become a job until I got to college.”

Brooks’ exemplary play at East Gaston High School and Wingate University has placed her in the Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame.

Even her induction has numbers attached.

Her 2024 induction is the Hall committee’s second attempt. “When it was first presented to me, Tyler Berg asked me about it last year, and I declined the offer,” she says. “Then this year, I guess he talked to (East Gaston’s) Coach Bridges, and he called me said, ‘Now, C, somebody is going to be calling you, and the answer needs to be yes.’ And I said, ‘Yes, sir,’ because how was I going to tell him no?”

Ernie Bridges coached Brooks at East Gaston from 2003 through 2007, but his impact on her life started earlier.

“The first time I met him I went for a summer camp, the summer between eighth and ninth grades. East Gaston had a camp, and I got introduced to him and he asked me a question and I answered ‘Yes,’ and he said, ‘That’s going to be yes, sir.’ He continued to give me structure and discipline,” she says. “I honestly don’t think I would have made it without him.”

There are a number of reasons.

He gave her game a meaning, when it needed one. And he helped Cierra Brooks – nicknamed CC – the person, as well as the athlete.

“When I was around 14 ½, right before I went to high school, my dad got sentenced to prison for eight-and-a-half years, so he didn’t see any of my high school or college games,” she says. “It was me and my mom. And when I was 16, my mom suddenly passed away. It was something we weren’t expecting; we didn’t know she was sick like that. So I was raised by my brothers. I was grateful to have Coach Bridges, because he kept me motivated and he really took me under his wing. I’m forever grateful to him, and to Kim Sealey, one of my teammates’ (Cameron Sealey) mom. She helped look out for me.”