Talented trio gives UB athletics local flavor

Buffalo is cold. It's windy and gray for more than half of the academic year. For potential Division I athletes, that would be reason enough to find somewhere outside of the brutal Queen City to spend four years of their life.

But for Greg Gamble, Heather Turner and Kyle Cerminara, there were plenty of important reasons to stick around.

Gamble, a native of from Niagara Falls and a freshman starter for the men's basketball team, says staying at home was just as much about family as it was the team.

"First of all, I'm really close to my family and we take care of each other," said the 6-foot 4-inch forward. "Second of all, this is a really good school."

Hailing from West Seneca, Turner is in the midst of her sophomore campaign on the women's basketball team and attempting to duplicate her individual success from last year, a year that earned her Mid-American Conference Freshman of the Year honors. Like Gamble, UB's standout forward also cited "family first" as a reason for choosing Buffalo.

"I chose to stay close to home because my family has always been a big part of my life and my basketball career," Turner said. "They've always come to my games. It would have been tough for me to go away and them not to be able to be there as often as they could."

Cerminara, the No. 5 nationally ranked senior wrestler from Lewiston, said it didn't matter where he decided to go. His family would have followed him wherever he chose to enroll.

"They come to all my matches," Cerminara said. "My family likes watching wrestling so much I think it wouldn't have mattered where I went."

Why, then, did the 197-pound Cerminara choose UB over schools like Northern Illinois and Drexel? The 2004 All-American said coaching and comfort with the team were his main reasons.

"At the time I was really familiar with the coaches and I worked with the then-assistant coach Sean Gibbs in high school and I thought he was really good," Cerminara said.

Gamble, like Cerminara also said coaching, specifically head coach Reggie Witherspoon, played a role in his choosing of UB over other local schools such as Canisius, Niagara and St. Bonaventure.

"He's like a salesperson," Gamble said. "He sells himself and sells the university to everyone. People that don't even like basketball... he'll get their attention."

Turner, who was named the 2004 Buffalo News Western New York Player of the Year, found Buffalo compelling for another reason. Since grammar school, she had attended UB women's basketball games with her teams and at times got to meet the players.

"I had a huge respect for those girls," Turner said. "They wore Buffalo across their chest. They worked their butts off and tried to make Buffalo proud."

Even though UB doesn't command the national attention that other schools do, like Maryland, who recruited Turner, the sophomore Bull said that didn't matter.

"It didn't matter that Buffalo wasn't nationally known," Turner said. "We'll get it there at one point."

While women's basketball has struggled to gain national recognition, the men's team has turned around its program over the last few seasons. For Gamble, the team's success both on the court and off greatly influenced him.

"The last couple years changed my decision," Gamble said. "I knew I was going to get a lot of playing time, to be a contributor. I'm a starter as a freshman and I'm getting quality minutes and I'm being productive on the court."

Still, though, Buffalo is not exactly San Diego and these talented athletes surely had opportunities to find success in warmer climates.

"That was on my mind when I was considering schools," Gamble said about the weather. "But I've grown up here. I can get used to it. It's only four more years."

While her teammates and most Buffalo students complain about the weather, Turner doesn't find it that bad.

"I don't think it's that bad but that might just be because I grew up here," Turner said. "I just finally bought a winter jacket this year. I haven't had one for like three years."

While basketball is a national sport with top programs all across the nation, wrestling can be limiting in terms of schools with good teams.

"If you really look at good wrestling, most schools are in the north," Cerminara said. "There are some really good schools out west, but that's too far. I wouldn't want to go to California to wrestle."

The three local stars-turned-UB-athletes will look to continue their success this weekend as Cerminara and the wrestling team travels to the Las Vegas Invitational on Friday and Saturday. Turner and Gamble are part of a men and women's double-header at Niagara University on Saturday. The women's game tips off at 5 p.m. with the men's game following immediately after at 7 p.m.