Overcoming Adversity: Josh Nickelberry
You can tell a lot about a person when adversity hits, many people tend to fold and feel sorry for themselves, while others rise above it and overcome adversity. Which brings us to star 2019 Shooting Guard Josh Nickelberry who will be headed to Oak Hill Academy for his junior year this weekend. Josh transferred in to Trinity Christian last fall and teamed up with 2019 Wing Joey Baker and Forward Greg Gantt. The squad was made up of mainly sophomores but they performed very well against the other top teams in the state who were much older. They would eventually lose in the NCISAA 1A State Championship but finished the season 21-10 while playing a very tough schedule which included the back to back 2A State Champions Village Christian, York Prep, Word of God and other top private school programs.
Once the high school season ended, he didn’t take much time off but instead got back into the lab and perfected his craft. You could see the hard work clearly paid off as he was dominant throughout the spring live period session with his Game Elite squad and received a nice amount of scholarship offers. Fast forward to July, which as we know is a time where youngsters really look forward to playing due to the amount of college coaches that are the building watching just about every night. However he would suffer an injury during the month which basically forced him to sit out.
This is where the true character of this young man showed, even though he was injured and disappointed like anyone would be. He got back into the gym with his trainer Mike Joiner of Born 2 Win Sports and worked out as soon as he could, spending time getting better with his off hand while his right hand healed. Joiner who played in the ACC, overseas, NBA DLeague has trained a good amount of high level players and he came away impressed with the youngsters work ethic as well as his attention to detail. The next stop for Josh is Mouth of Wilson, VA to attend Oak Hill Academy and following that stop is still up in the air. He currently holds over 30 scholarship offers which includes UNC, NC State, USC, Baylor, Florida, Louisville and UConn just to name a few.