Gerhardt's Early Life

Gerhardt's father Jim playing basketball at Rice University in 1950. Two years later, he'd go on to be in the Olympics.

Born in 1968, Tom Gerhardt grew up primarily on the westside of Houston, Texas (Gerhardt, 2020). Gerhardt’s father, James “Jim” Gerhardt worked for Gulf Oil, but before that he had played basketball for Rice University (Gerhardt, 2020) and participated in the 1952 summer Olympics in the men’s triple jump (Jim Gerhardt Bio, Stats, and Results, n.d.). Tom’s own interest in the competitive nature of sports combined with his father’s athletic background made it evident that Tom would spend a lot of his free time involved in athletics (Gerhardt, 2020). As an adolescent, Tom ended up playing whatever sports he and his friends had access to, whether it be basketball, tennis, baseball, or football. Eventually he gravitated towards baseball as his “first love” (Gerhardt, 2020). At age 12, however, is when Gerhardt started really watching basketball. He became transfixed on the gracefulness and athleticism of the players at the time (Gerhardt, 2020). This grew his interest in the sport, signifying a shift from his desire to play baseball to wanting to spend more of his time with a basketball in his hands. After participating in summer camps and polishing his skillset, Gerhardt realized how good he really was at basketball (Gerhardt, 2020). While he was not the tallest, strongest, nor fastest player on the court, his strengths as a player were his fundamentals and the marksmanship that he exhibited while shooting the basketball (Gerhardt, 2020).

Gerhardt started his seventh and eighth grade seasons on the basketball team attending Spring Forest Middle School (Gerhardt, 2020). He then went onto Stratford High School (1987 Stratford High School Yearbook, n.d.), but his freshman year started with uncertainty as Hurricane Alicia hit Houston hard in 1983 (Hlavaty, 2019). On the second day of school, the freshmen team’s basketball coach told Gerhardt that he  showed enough during their preseason scrimmaging and pick up games that they  wanted to move him to the junior varsity team (Gerhardt, 2020). After his initial season on the JV team, Gerhardt felt confident that he was able to play well with and against older competition in the form of sophomores and juniors (Gerhardt, 2020). It reassured him that he was capable of producing on the basketball court despite being a younger player. He was rewarded for his production during his sophomore year where he was promoted to the varsity team (Gerhardt, 2020). He, along with future NFL quarterback David Klingler, were the only sophomores to be on the team at the time and were ready to lead the team to greater heights than in previous years (Gerhardt, 2020). Unfortunately, his sophomore year did not end well for Stratford’s varsity basketball team, but the future looked bright heading into his junior and senior seasons. They ended up being slightly above .500 for his junior year. Gerhardt acknowledged that he had struggled with consistency that season, but was eager to end his high school career on a high note during his senior year (Gerhardt, 2020).

Heading into his senior season at Stratford, Gerhardt was not as sought after for his athletic prowess as he had wanted to be and in contrast, his teammate David Klingler was being scouted heavily by colleges and universities (Gerhardt, 2020). Klingler was warranting attention for his role on the Stratford varsity football team and had participated in basketball tournaments with the likes of Larry Johnson (future NBA player) and Taju Olajuwon, who was the younger brother of NBA star Hakeem Olajuwon (Gerhardt, 2020). While Gerhardt was supportive of his teammate, he felt he could hold his own against stiff competition on the basketball court, even if he was not as athletic as his friend. As his final season in high school progressed, the year started off better than any of his previous seasons on the varsity team. Stratford finished the regular season second in the district behind Hastings High School and ended up making the playoffs, losing to Jack Yates High School in the second round (Gerhardt, 2020). Yates and Hastings both went on to lose to La Porte High School who wound up winning the state championship in the 1986-1987 season (League, n.d.). Despite the loss, Gerhardt was satisfied with his high school career and looked forward to playing collegiately. Where he would play, and if he would play, was still very much in the air.