UMass Magazine Online

Winter 2005

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Prerequisite

Degrees of Success
For senior point guard Anthony Anderson, defying the odds is part of the game

–Matt Vatour ’96

THREE YEARS AGO, THE IDEA that Anthony Anderson would have one bachelor’s degree completed and a second in the works would have been unthinkable to anyone familiar with his academic standing— including Anderson himself.

“I definitely would have been surprised that I was going to graduate or be here this long,” he admitted. The men’s basketball team’s senior point guard is proud of the diploma he earned in May, but he’s hoping to add another accomplishment before he leaves Amherst.

“I want to win more than anything,” he said. “That’s all I want to do. I’m pretty much done with school, so I can focus on basketball, on trying to help get this program back where it’s supposed to be.”

In 1997, the NCAA ruled that players who were academically ineligible as freshmen could earn back their lost year of eligibility if they met their degree requirements in four years. Anderson, who in his first year did not have the necessary combination of grade point average and standardized test scores in high school to be eligible, became the fourth UMass player to take advantage of the graduation incentive, joining Tyrone Weeks, Monty Mack and Kitwana Rhymer. (Current players Rashaun Freeman and Lawrence Carrier are also eligible to earn back their lost seasons.)

“It was a long hard road for me,” Anderson said. “I wasn’t big on school in high school, but I gradually got into it. I actually like school now. I’m the first in my family to have this opportunity. It’s big for them too. My mother is very proud. My grandmother, my aunt ... that’s all they talk about. It’s crazy ... I’m from a place where not a lot of kids go to college, but look at me. It can happen.”

Anderson’s troubles in high school stemmed largely from missed classes. Other schools shied away from the talented ball player, but then-coach Bruiser Flint brought Anderson to UMass. His grades were good enough to be eligible as a sophomore and in Steve Lappas’s first season, Anderson earned Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year honors. But after the season ended, Anderson fell back into his pattern of missing classes.

Lappas issued an ultimatum. “Coach called my mom and we sat in the office and had a long talk,” Anderson said. “The last thing he said was ‘It’s your last chance. One more time and you’re done.’ It really hit me that there’s no breaks for anybody.”

“I’m very proud of what he’s accomplished,” Lappas said. “He’s kind of the poster boy for the program for how far he’s come,” he said. “It will be a very special thing for him and his family and for us because I know how much we’ve all put into coming to this point. It’s a great lesson for what working and perseverance can do for you.”

Both are hoping that perseverance helps bring the Minutemen to their first winning season since 1999-2000. There are reasons to believe: Freeman was Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year and is arguably the conference’s best returning big man.

Sophomores Art Bowers and Maurice Maxwell showed signs of star potential as well.
Anderson said the team is the best it has been since he arrived on campus. “We’re so much better,” he said. “At the beginning of the year last year we couldn’t even get through warm-ups because everybody was so new. Now everybody knows what’s going on.”

People outside the program agree with him. Several preseason magazines have picked the Minutemen to win the Atlantic 10 East. Anderson smiled at the idea. “It would be a great feeling to win again,” he said. “I think this is the team that can get us back to where UMass is supposed to be.”

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