Sunday, October 11, 2009

Ron Anderson re-visited

Boyd Grant's Bulldogs use to drive us crazy. Their style of play was, um, 'sedate' -- no, make that 'somnolent' -- but opponents couldn't budge them from it and generally couldn't beat 'em either. It was a great run for FSU hoops. They were smallish but Bernard Thompson, Tyrone Bradley, Ron Anderson and others played big.

Lest anyone think it was a case of an average team winning a weak league, Grant's team took down UTEP, Michigan State, Oregon State, Wake Forest and DePaul to win the 1983 NIT championship. That's when the NIT actually meant something.

Here's a feature on Anderson who is living a life even he couldn't have predicted:

Ex-'Dog can't quit at age 51
Matt James
The Fresno Bee
October 10, 2009

When Ron Anderson talks to his mother on the phone, she sometimes can't believe his voice. "You speak strange," she says.

She lives in Chicago, in the house Anderson bought her.

He lives in Cholet, France, in the country where basketball took him, or at least where he followed it. The city is two hours southwest of Paris, a short drive to the Atlantic Ocean, where he now speaks French so fluently he has an accent and forgets English words, where he is recognized pretty much everywhere he goes, where he knows the mayor well, and could probably run for the office himself...
Go here for the remainder.

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