Brownsburg star and Purdue commit has come a long way to find the success she is now enjoying
By Josh George
Avery Gordon first started playing basketball when she was in the second grade. She has always been one of the taller players wherever she played, but her love for the game and herself literally grew her eighth grade year when she started playing travel basketball. Until then, she was playing mostly on local youth teams and YMCA teams. As she grew and her love for basketball grew, she unfortunately started suffering injuries. This challenged her in more ways than one, but she credits the support of her parents, travel coaches (Tony Marlin and Phil Blazek), her high school coaches (Debby Smiley and her staff), and her doctors/trainers for helping her stay positive and push through rehab to become one of the more dominating players in the county right now.
Avery always said she knew she was going to be tall. She did not know until the summer after her eighth grade year just how tall she was going to be. Avery now stands at 6”6’ and her presence is felt in more ways than one. She is dominant on the court for the Brownsburg girls’ basketball team where she is averaging a team high 26.4 PPG, 11.9 RPG, and 2.0 BPG. While growing as a player, she has also grown as a leader. “Her impact as a leader supersedes her impact as a player. She leads us statistically in several categories, but her growth as a teammate and person has had, and continues to have, a profound influence on her teammates and coaches. We all appreciate her as a servant leader,” said Coach Debby Smiley. Avery gives her coaches at Brownsburg a lot of credit for becoming the player and person that she is today. She believes she is now the best version of herself on and off the court, and does not believe she would be where she is today without the coaching and athletic program at Brownsburg.
All of the success that Avery has had led her to committing to Purdue University this past summer. She had several schools recruiting her, including Michigan, Iowa, Ohio State, Illinois, and Purdue. Purdue set themselves apart for several reasons. “First of all, it is the Big Ten. Second, my family has always been a fan of Purdue and growing up in Indiana, I always loved going to Purdue Women’s basketball games as a kid. My family is extremely important to me, so the fact Purdue is so close to home, and that I will be able to look in the stands and see my family at Mackey just makes me excited. Lastly, Purdue is a great academic school and I love that they offered everything I could want when it came to my education,” said Avery.
Playing in the Big Ten and at Purdue has always been a dream of hers. However, she knows there is much more work ahead to do with her high school team at Brownsburg. She has some individual goals that include averaging a double-double and scoring her 1000th career high school point. She also has some team goals that consist of winning the Hendricks County Tournament again, making a deep run in the state tournament, and finishing higher in conference then last year. Coach Debby has some expectations for Avery and the team as well that include continuing to grow and get better everyday in practice, not only as players and teammates but as young ladies. One thing is for sure, Avery is going to continue to have great success as a player, person, and a leader. Best of luck to Avery and her team moving forward, and congrats on being the ICONIC Athlete of the Week!
