Central Missouri’s Anderson wins one for the good guys

For most of the frantic Division II national title game Saturday, Central Missouri coach Kim Anderson radiated his customary pose of poise.

There he stood on the sideline, stoic, his arms crossed, projecting a restrained strength he wanted his team to absorb all through the dizzying nine lead changes and 14 ties in the Mules’ 84-77 win over West Liberty.

He even transmitted calm when it was the last thing he felt, like when the Mules lost the ball out of bounds with 50 seconds left and leading by three and he felt a certain paranoid “vision.”

Then there was this:

Amid a surge capped by Raytown product TJ White’s layup that gave Central Missouri a nine-point lead with 10 seconds left, Anderson started crying and hugging anybody nearby. He buried his head in the shoulder of guard Jon Gilliam and assistant coach Brad Loos or some combination thereof.

If you know him, you might have wanted to be in on that, too. Score one for the Mules but also one for dignity and grace, which are in short supply all over but always have been Anderson’s hallmarks.

“Just thrilled for him,” legendary Mizzou coach Norm Stewart, for whom Anderson played and coached, said via telephone Saturday.

And Stewart surely spoke for many about Anderson, who didn’t expect to coach again after he took a job with the Big 12 after being passed over in favor of Quin Snyder to succeed Stewart.

When this moment arrived, it hit fast: Before Anderson even entered the postgame handshake line, someone handed him the trophy to lug along.

“They wanted to give it to me in a hurry,” he joked, “before something changed.”

Even in between taking a call from Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, with whom he used to play pickup ball, and snipping at the nets on both ends, Anderson, 58, still was in disbelief.

“I’m going to cry some more, I’m going to tell you that right now,” he said, misting up. “Told you. You coach forever, and you always say, ‘We’re going to win a national championship,’ but how many people do? And there’s a lot better coaches than me around that haven’t won one.

“But we won one today.”

They won it before a national television audience on CBS on the 30th anniversary of Central Missouri’s remarkable men’s and women’s national championships in the same year.

“To have our institution showcased live on CBS, 3.1 million people and live on Westwood One radio all across the nation, you can’t buy that,” said Central Missouri athletic director Jerry Hughes, who was in his second year on the job for the last title.

They won it before a crowd of 4,742, which doesn’t seem like a lot but sounded like a lot since some two-thirds were Mules fans, including four busloads of students who came 380 miles on Saturday morning. It felt like a home game for Central Missouri.

“That’s Mule Nation,” Anderson said.

And as if to remind that the Mule is in fact the state mascot, they did it with a roster of nine native Missourians. From Moberly and Nixa and Paris and St. Louis and

“A lot of kids from Kansas City,” noted Stewart, who watched intently on TV and perhaps offered some officiating advice along the way.

It was Kansas City-area kids and longtime friends Daylen Robinson and TJ White who combined for the game-winning bucket in the national semifinal on Thursday. And Robinson (21 points), Smithville’s Dillon Deck (16 points and 10 rebounds) and Charles Hammork (a New Orleans native) made the All-Elite Eight team.

Hammork had six assists and 12 rebounds Saturday but struggled some, missing so many shots that at one point he decided he wouldn’t take any more.

But he was too open to help himself when he hit a three-pointer that gave the Mules a 76-71 lead with 3:50 left, just after the Hilltoppers had cut it to 73-71 on a layup that proved to be their last basket until a token layup with 2 seconds left.

Hammork has been complicated for Anderson, who sent him home from a tournament last year. But every time Hammork looked to the bench on Saturday, Anderson was pumping his fist in encouragement.

“Well, here’s the story about ol’ Chuck,” Anderson said. “Chuck and I have been through a lot.”

Then his voice betrayed him, forcing him to pause long seconds as tears leaked.

On virtually every level, Anderson’s emotions were about those relationships — what this means to others. This doesn’t make him a different coach, and it’s not validation he needed.

But he loves to compete, and this has been a long time coming. And coaching seemed over when he went to the Big 12.

Until Hughes drove to Kansas City during the 2002 Big 12 tournament to woo him.

Hughes knew Anderson was from Sedalia, that his parents had gone to Central Missouri and that his sister Kathy had been an All-America basketball player there. He’d seen him play in high school and at MU, where he was Big Eight player of the year in 1977, and he knew there was a reason he kept being recognized for character.

Anderson was happy at the Big 12 but had always wanted to be a head coach. Maybe there’s no other job he would have taken, but this was home, too.

“I wanted to see if I could do it,” he said, smiling and adding, “I really was not sure what I was doing when I got there.”

Just the same, he took the Mules to Final Fours in 2007 and 2009 only to lose heartbreakers in the national semifinals.

And on Saturday he experienced a different sort of heartbreak -- the kind that comes when emotional walls fall.

“I still can’t believe it,” Anderson said, reassuring himself with the official stat sheet and two snipped-down nets he was holding.

This story was originally published March 29, 2014 at 9:43 PM with the headline "Central Missouri’s Anderson wins one for the good guys."