Sanders Excels on, off Court at Columbia Central
By Jeff Steers JTV Sports (December 28, 2024 8:00 AM ET) Tenacious, strong, and confident is how Columbia Central High School basketball player Derek Sanders – an avid comic book collector – describes his favorite Marvel Comic Book character Thor. Others at CCHS may say those words apply to Sanders. The CCHS senior just scored his 1,000th point on the basketball court, helped the Golden Eagles win a soccer league championship this past fall, and expects to graduate with a GPA over 4.0 in the spring. Not bad for someone who blazed his own trail at CCHS. He transferred from the Hanover-Horton district as a freshman to attend schools at Columbia – a district his family already lived in. “Having a soccer team, solid academics, and living in the district made it easy,” Sanders said of the decision. “The learning curve of adjusting from eighth grade basketball to varsity was the tough part.” Making a name for himself in the sport of basketball may have also been tough for the then 15-year-old. His two brothers played on successful basketball teams under HHHS Coach Chad Mortimer. “I was always the little brother who got beat on the basketball court,” Sanders said…
