When Sarah and Camden Helder got married, their vows included “for better or worse,” but little did they know it would be measured by wins and losses at Frederica Academy.
Camden Helder is the Knights boys cross-country coach while his wife heads the girls basketball team at the private school on St. Simons Island. Eleven years ago, Sarah Helder, née Russell, was setting records at Glynn Academy where she averaged a double-double her senior year. Half a continent away, Cam Helder was starting out as a high jumper and cross country runner for DeSmet High School in South Dakota.
The two met while earning their master’s degrees at the Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas. “It was the first day and I saw him. He’s 6’10” and I thought, ‘Great. Someone to play basketball with me.'” They started working out, then dating and in 2011, they married. The couple then made their move back to Sarah’s hometown, where they started coaching for Frederica Academy. While Sarah teaches physical education at the lower school, Cam’s day job is counselor at a private facility on St. Simons.
“He comes to about 90 percent of my practices,” Sarah admits, adding that her husband is also not above cooking team meals on occasion. The students in her elementary PE classes also like when Cam visits because they like to watch him dunk the basketball.
He enjoys helping his wife at position coaching. “I don’t call it ‘coaching,'” he says. “I call it ‘helping.'”
Although she is primarily remembered as a standout basketball player at Glynn Academy, Sarah got her start in athletics at Frederica Academy, making the All-Region team as a soccer midfielder in eighth grade. She was also an All-Coastal Georgia selection as a center for the Lady Knights basketball team her freshman season.
She transferred to Glynn Academy prior to her sophomore year and was named the Coastal Georgia Player of the Year her senior season, when she averaged 22 points and 10.5 rebounds per contest. During one game, she scored 33 points, was 100 percent from the foul line, and even hit a half court shot to beat the buzzer at halftime. In the opening round of the playoffs, she mimicked Michael Jordan’s famous “Flu Game” when she ignored doctor’s orders, took to the court, and scored 18 points while sick with the flu.
Her efforts paid off and schools such as Boston College were recruiting Sarah, who decided to stay in warmer climes and went to Mercer University in Macon. She got her first taste of big time basketball when the Lady Bears traveled to play Iowa in the 15,000 seat Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City.
“I was overwhelmed as a freshman,” she says. She eventually dominated opponents at Mercer, lettering all four years she played and scoring more than 1,000 points during her collegiate career. An injury caused her to redshirt her senior year but her drive and determination was the spirit behind Mercer’s creation of the Sarah Russell Award for women’s basketball players.
After college, Sarah continued playing with the Atlanta Battlecats and trained with the team from the Czech Republic.
Cam was a jumper at South Dakota State University, specializing in the high jump and triple jump for the Jackrabbits. He started high jumping in middle school and progressed through high school. In his senior year, South Dakota State University called and wanted him to visit so he could consider accepting a scholarship.
“I had no idea about recruiting,” Cam says. “I was an easy sell. I told them I didn’t need to visit, that I’d just do it.”
Jumping 6’2″ his sophomore year, Cam started concentrating on the technical aspects of jumping and by his senior year at SDSU, he tied a school record by jumping 7′ ½” inch and earned All-Summit League honors.
“He’s super shy,” Sarah says of her husband. “He was in the running to be on the Olympic team but he was injured.”
Sarah and Cam decided to attend the Dallas Theological Seminary in 2010. While earning her master’s in education, Sarah worked as head girls basketball coach at the Covenant School in Dallas, Texas. She was offered the position with the Lady Knights after Randy Rogers left, following five seasons on St. Simons Island.
Since arriving in the Golden Isles, the Helders have helped and supported each other on and off the playing field. “He gave me the best coaching advice ever,” Sarah explains. “He told me I was doing too much. We needed to concentrate and be really good at a few things rather than be okay at a lot of things. Work on ball handling and dribbling and then work on other things.”
For Cam, moving to St. Simons Island has offered surroundings that are much different than his rural South Dakota upbringing. “When it was 20 degrees here a few weeks ago, it was 20 below back home. I traded up.”
The Sarah Russell Award
There is an award named for Frederica Academy girls basketball coach Sarah Helder at Mercer University in Macon. Then Sarah Russell, she lettered all four years and scored more than 1,000 points during her collegiate career. But it was her drive and determination to overcome a potentially career-ending injury that encouraged officials at Mercer to establish an award in her name.
“My best year was my junior year but I tore my ACL in the conference tournament,” she says.
Sarah spent the next year rehabilitating her injured knee, determined to return for one final season. She red-shirted her fourth year and spent hundreds of hours working to strengthen the torn ligament. Under NCAA rules, players have five years to play four, and Sarah returned as a fifth-year senior.
Her positive attitude on and off the court inspired the Sarah Russell Award to honor a woman’s basketball player who “exemplifies fighting with heart, courage and integrity in the field of battle as well as giving honor to the game of basketball and Mercer University.”
Her advice for students is to start by setting priorities. “My relationship with God is number one, and along with my relationship with my family, comes before basketball.”
SE-CC-0214-Helders
Coach’s Corner/ Southeast /
February 2014 Sarah & Cam Helder
Frederica Academy St. Simons Island, Ga
By Rob Asbell
Mr. and Mrs. Coach
