The Day's 2015 All-Area Girls' Basketball Player of the Year: Norwich Free Academy's Cebria Outlow
Cebria Outlow remembers the problems she had growing up in Philadelphia and is grateful to her parents for moving her and her four brothers to Norwich in 2008.
Outlow is equally grateful for the life lessons she learned in Philadelphia and how they have molded her.
“It shaped my toughness, my mental toughness,” Outlow said. “Emotionally, it shaped me. I can’t really explain it, but I just remember the struggles I went through there.
“I’m taking a positive outlook at that. I don’t want to go through that again. I’m happy that my parents did what they had to do to get me and my brothers out of there. I’m really grateful, but I’m grateful to have been there as long as I did because I definitely learned a lot. It was definitely rough, but it definitely shaped me for the better.”
Philadelphia helped instill a work ethic and mental and physical resolve in Outlow that she’s taken to both the classroom and court.
A junior forward, Outlow helped Norwich Free Academy to its fourth straight Eastern Connecticut Conference tournament championship, as well as a berth in the CIAC Class LL semifinals.
Outlow was named The Day’s 2015 All-Area Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year.
Outlow averaged a team-high 16.6 points and 7.8 rebounds along with 2.9 steals for the Wildcats (25-2). Their only losses were to Class LL runner-up South Windsor. Outlow is driven to work hard at the sport and her classwork.
“I’m a big academics person,” Outlow said. “If I’m bored, I work on a project or whatever that’s due in three months. … I’m better off when I’m busy.
“In Philadelphia, there’s a lot of kids that have so much free time that they’re not doing anything good with it. That kind of drove me to do better. There are different things that I could be doing. I could be doing God knows what. … I do my nerd things, my projects, stuff like that.”
Growing up as the only girl in a family with three brothers has also helped mold Outlow. Her older brother Marcus is a former NFA football and basketball star who started as a freshman this past fall for the Boston College football team. Her younger brothers are Ryan (9) and Justin (8).
“(Marcus) helped me become naturally tough because I had to be,” Outlow said. “I would honestly say there’s no sibling rivalry. There definitely had been in the past few years, but over time we grew up and noticed that he’s going to do well in football and I’m going to do well in basketball, so we’re going to ride it out and support each other in everything that we do.
“We know that we’re both good at what we do. … We don’t need to have a rivalry. We’ll leave (the rivalries) to NFA and New London. We’re brother and sister. We’re fine.”
NFA wasn’t blessed with much size this season aside from senior center Olivia Lane (6 feet), so Outlow (5-9) needed to take on more rebounding responsibility.
“She was always good, but I thought she improved her rebounding,” NFA coach Bill Scarlata said. “She had a pretty good knack of playing defense close to the basket and blocked a lot of shots.
“She’s a nice kid. She works hard in practice and is kind of a quiet leader. She doesn’t yell.”
“I felt the need to lead by example,” Outlow said. “I don’t believe in yelling at your teammates. My freshman year, there were seniors that did that and I didn’t like it and no one else did. Why would you do that? That’s just how I felt about that, but I’m definitely not afraid to tell them when they’re doing something wrong or need to work on something.”
n.griffen@theday.com
Twitter: @MetalNED
The Day's 2015 All-Area Girls' Basketball Team
Player of the Year — Cebria Outlow (NFA)
Margot Calmar (Stonington)
Hailey Conley (NFA)
Taty LaFrance Boyce (Stonington)
Deanna McCarvell (New London)
Charee Osborne (New London)
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