Basketball
Favorite athlete: Maya Moore
Favorite team: UConn Men’s and Women’s Basketball (Both my parents are alums, so we’re pretty big fans!)
Favorite memory competing in sports: When I held a D1 player to 10 points below her average in two different games.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: I have a tendency to get hit in the head with basketballs during shootarounds. It has happened so many times that my teammates now keep a running tally. It’s what I lead the team in!
Music on iPod: It’s a random mix of rap, Broadway and pop.
Future plans: Go to college for international relations with a focus in environmental studies.
Words to live by: “What we think, we become.”
One goal before turning 30: I would like to visit all seven continents.
One thing people don’t know about me: I love photography!
By Mary Jane Souder
Lindsay Nier found herself facing a real dilemma when basketball tryouts rolled around this fall. The Central Bucks East senior had a major role in the school’s fall musical, The Sound of Music, and tryouts for basketball coincided with the final week of practice for the musical.
“I couldn’t miss rehearsals – I’d already committed to it, but in no way would it be fair for me to miss basketball tryouts and still make the team,” Nier said.
First-year coach Liz Potash was sympathetic of Nier’s quandary.
“She came up to me almost in tears, and said, ‘Coach, I’m going to miss tryouts, and if I can’t play this year, I’ll understand,’” East’s first-year coach recalled. “I said, ‘This is not happening. We will find a way to make it work.’”
And make it work they did.
Nier was able to attend tryouts without missing practices for the musical.
“I talked to my director, who told me she actually played basketball in middle school, and I talked to my producer,” Nier said. “They e-mailed back and forth with coach Potash, and they worked everything out. It was incredibly generous of them to have so much flexibility with me. I owe everything to them.”
Potash, who adjusted her tryout schedule, clearly wouldn’t have wanted to be without Nier on her roster.
“She’s awesome,” the Patriots’ coach said. “She just plays so hard. She’s not afraid to get in there and do the dirty work.
“She’ll box out, she’ll rebound, and her defense is incredible. Lindsay just does all the little things that don’t show up on the stat sheet.”
Nier admits she brings a defensive mindset to the game, a mindset that was developed playing soccer.
“Even at a young age, I always played defense,” she said. “I was always a defensive back or sweeper. I even played goalie for a while.
“I’ve always been defensive-minded. In basketball, you play offense and defense, which is different than soccer, but it’s always stayed with me that I’ve had a tendency to lean more toward the defensive side.”
There’s nothing Nier enjoys more than the challenge of slowing down an opposing team’s top offensive weapon, and she is defined by her hustle on the basketball court, a style of play that does not go unnoticed.
“We went to Princeton’s team camp in August for a weekend,” Potash said. “I was the last one to leave after we checked out, and two of the Princeton coaches said, ‘We love the way she plays. She just goes up and down the floor.’
“My assistant coaches do a lot of my subbing in games, and they are both like, ‘You know what – we never want to take her out.’ She’s one of those kids - you just always want her on the floor.”
Nier, a three-year member of the varsity, has been playing basketball since her CBAA days. In fifth grade, she began playing travel and, more recently, played for the Renegades on the AAU circuit.
“I like in basketball how you have your teammates to work for, but you’re always in the action,” Nier said. “Basketball is intense all the time. You could make a mistake, but there’s always that chance to redeem yourself.”
Nier’s philosophy on the court is simple – play all out all the time.
“As a freshman and a swing player, I never got to play much, but my whole thing was that if I did have a chance to go into the game to give 100 percent of my effort,” Nier said. “You don’t know how much time you’re going to have on the floor, you don’t know when some other player will come in and offer their talents instead, so give everything you have in that moment.”
This year’s East team, which includes five seniors, has an especially large freshman class.
“Over the years, we lost some players here and there,” Nier said. “We just want to give a positive experience to these new freshmen and incorporate them into the program and help them grow into it and really enjoy playing basketball.”
It’s a safe bet few players on any team enjoy their experience more than Nier.
“Basketball for me is where I met some of my best friends,” she said. “This is where I’ve had some of my best high school memories.
“It’s been such a huge part of my life, and it’s helped me develop good work habits and helped me learn how to handle myself in tough situations. It’s definitely about helping to grow with these freshmen.”
If the freshmen are looking for a role model, they need look no further than Nier.
“I’ve always been impressed with her from the first day I started working with these guys,” Potash said. “She just hustles. She will give you every single thing that she has.
“I do expect her to score a little bit every game, but anything over that is just an added bonus because you really can’t replace some of the things she gives you.”
If Nier only played basketball, she would get her money’s worth, but that is just the tip of the iceberg for the East senior. She played Baroness Elsa Schraeder in The Sound of Music and has been involved in musical theater at East since her sophomore year when she received a role in a student production written by an East student. Nier, a member of her church choir as a youngster, received her introduction to musical theater in elementary school but gave it up in favor of sports in middle school.
In the fall of her junior year, Nier, opting to not play soccer, had a role in the musical The Little Mermaid, and in the spring, she is a member of the stage crew.
“It’s not as large a commitment, but it’s still an interesting way to be involved in all parts of the production,” she said. “It’s so much fun, and I love the people I’ve met there.”
For the past 10 years, Nier has competed with the Fanny Chapman swim team during the summer. She also is a lifeguard at Fanny Chapman.
“It’s where I’ve met some of my best friends,” Nier said. “In ninth grade, I had to choose between swimming and basketball. I ended up continuing swimming in the summer. It’s just a good community event I’m involved in, and it’s a lot of fun.”
A top flight student, Nier is the treasurer of National Honor Society and enjoys the community service opportunities that NHS affords her.
Although she is undecided on a college, Nier has her sights set on pursuing an International Affairs major, focusing on environmental studies. Her interest in that area was piqued when she took an AP Environmental class as a junior and in this year’s AP Comparative Government class.
For now, Nier is focusing on her final high school basketball season that finds the Patriots in the role of underdog.
“I don’t think really much is expected out of us this year,” she said. “That’s kind of given us a bit of an edge that we want to prove people wrong. It should be fun.”
And for Nier, fun is the operative word. This is one student-athlete who has found enjoyment in every facet of high school life.
“She is such a nice kid,” Potash said. “She’s very well rounded. She does 500 things, and she’s a top student.
“She immerses herself in what she does. I’ll often say to some of our freshmen who are swing players on the bench – look how hard she plays in the post, look at her position, look at her defense. She’s just a great example for the younger kids, and she’s a really nice kid.”
