When DeLaSalle High School was looking for a new head
boys basketball coach before this season began, Islanders senior Nasir Whitlock
knew whom he wanted to see get the job.
Whitlock, a senior who has signed with Lehigh
University and scored a school-record 52 points in a win at Hopkins last week, hoped
longtime assistant coach Todd Anderson would be promoted.
“One hundred percent,” Whitlock said Tuesday night
after the Islanders defeated visiting Cooper 80-53 to improve to 14-4 under
their new coach.
Anderson, however, is not new to the program. The
48-year-old spent half his life – yes, 24 years – as an Islanders assistant
coach. He’s leading one of the most successful programs in Minnesota history as
the 15th head coach of a program that played its first season in 1921.
DeLaSalle owns 12 state championships. Current
University of Minnesota assistant coach Dave Thorson (who hired Anderson) led
the Islanders for 23 years, winning nine state titles and six in a row before
leaving in 2017 for the college ranks. He was replaced by former Islanders
player Travis Bledsoe, who coached there for five years, took all five teams to
the state tournament and won one championship.
Bledsoe was hired as head men’s coach at Anoka-Ramsey
Community College last summer, leaving the DeLaSalle job open.
“It was all pretty sudden,” said DeLaSalle activities
director Keelie Sorensen. “We knew it was going to be a big hire. The first
thought was always Todd.”
Anderson works outside the school, and Sorensen said
she wondered, “would he be ready to make it work with his daytime job and two
kids at home? I knew he wanted to become a head coach. The stars had to align
and the cards had to fall into place.”
All those details were worked out, and the Islanders
are in the form that past teams were famous for. They play tough defense, they
run the court with abandon and move the ball on offense.
Anderson, a native of Audubon who played college basketball at Minnesota
Morris, is filled with gratitude.
“Part of
what's made this deal so special for me is the people,” he said. “Coach Thorson
made me the coach that I am today. I’m still working on that but he's made me a
better person, because he showed me a culture that changed people's lives. And
at the end of the day, that is way more important than how the ball bounces. So
I'm indebted to him.
“What I
found is that it started out being about basketball. But it's so far from
basketball at this point, that it literally is about the people, the kids, and
helping young people just become their best self. And that's got nothing to do
with basketball.”
Sorensen
said hiring Anderson was almost a no-brainer.
“I had parents reaching out and saying, ‘Hey, is Todd
the guy?’ And Travis said, ‘Todd’s your guy.’
“He’s been such a tremendous part of DeLaSalle
basketball for so long. The amount of work Todd has put in with our boys and
how he’s there for the kids, even as an assistant, is phenomenal. It’s almost
something I’ve never seen before. Being a head coach brings a whole different
set of responsibilities, and you don’t know it until you’re in it.”
This far into the season, Anderson is accustomed to
the administrative duties and other aspects of being a head coach. But that
doesn’t mean he takes anything for granted.
“I want to
make sure that I'm serving these guys in the right way,” he said. “I want to be
prepared, and there's nothing worse than finishing a game and looking back and
saying, ‘You know, I made mistakes.’ So I guess if anything, I'm a double-,
triple-, quadruple-check kind of guy.”
Whitlock
leads the team with a scoring of 28 points. Next is Isreal Moses V at 14
points; he has signed to play football at Kansas.
Whitlock
said Anderson sets a strong example.
“You're not going
to work harder than him, especially as a player,” he said. “He’s here long before
you get here for practice. He’s fair to everybody and he wants us to be
successful.”
The
tradition and expectations surrounding DeLaSalle boys basketball can appear
intimidating, but Anderson said some things matter more than the scoreboard.
“We’ve
talked about it and it’s not about winning and losing, it's about the process,”
he said. “If you just love the process, adhere to the culture and the
expectations, the scoreboard will generally takes care of itself. It's not
about winning or losing. It's ‘Are we progressing every day, every month, and
who are we come February and March.’ That's what matters.’
“I'm so
proud of these guys. And it's fun. It's like we all keep each other in check. I
told them, ‘You're accountable to me, you're accountable to each other, but I'm
accountable to you.’ So we're all doing this together.”
--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of
Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn
and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts.
Contact John at jmillea@mshsl.org
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