Carla Sterk-Fles was highly successful as a basketball player at all levels and as a collegiate coach.
In high school, she led the unbeaten 1988 team at South Christian to the Class B state championship, and finished second in the state’s Miss Basketball balloting.
At Central Michigan University, she became the all-time leader in blocked shots and No. 2 career scorer, and was among the top four in career rebounding, field-goal and free-throw percentage.
She was named first-team All-Mid-American Conference twice and is in the CMU Athletics Hall of Fame.
Her professional playing career included playing in Portugal on a championship team in 1997-98.
She was head coach from 1999-2011 at Cornerstone University, where she collected a school-record 301 wins, was BCAM College Coach of the Year in 2002 and her teams won four regular-season titles, six conference tournament titles, appeared in the NAIA DII national tournament eight times and finished as national runner-up in 2001-02.