Sophmore Year
His sophomore season with Trinity began with big questions about who would fill the scoring void left by the departures of Almquist and Spillane. In addition to that, guard Chris Proctor and small forward Doug Hafer were taking their talents to the intramural courts leaving an opportunity for Gerhardt to compete for a spot in the starting lineup (Horning, 1988). Gerhardt ultimately got to start alongside Mark Murphy (Hinsdale, 1988), but the season ended with Trinity going 6-20 (Team W-L Records, n.d.). The losses were hard for Gerhardt to stomach. In 7th and 8th grade, he only lost one game combined between both seasons and his high school career both started and ended with successful seasons. He was not used to losing as much as they lost his sophomore year. He and the team felt they were better than their record suggests, but Gerhardt felt that the more they lost, the more the losing culture became normal for the team (Gerhardt, 2020). It was a hard rut to break out of. Not helping the situation was that they were not in a conference and were asked to go up against NAIA schools and even Division I schools. At the same time, they were tasked with traveling to schools such as one in Colorado, that had crescent-shaped backboards and no three-point line (Gerhardt, 2020). The inconsistency in the level of competition that they played against was mind-boggling and would soon be an issue that would be fixed by the athletic director, Gene Norris, and President Ron Calgaard in the following season.