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| Published March 4, 2004 :: Home |
Right
in the Middle of Things If you're looking for Zillah point guard Kelly Anderson, you'll likely find him wherever the action is By SCOTT SANDSBERRY YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC His voice over the public-address system is the first thing Zillah students every day at school, but that’s nothing new. Kelly Anderson has always started early.
At 3 years old, he was already raising the eyebrows of his preschool teacher because, well, he was reading. By the time he was 5, he was already understanding the conservational nuances of adults at family gatherings while the other kids were blithely oblivious. “He’d hear something and roll his eyes at something that we’d be rolling our eyes at, something the other kids wouldn’t even understand,” says LeAnn Anderson, his mom. “I’d be blown away by that.” Anderson has pretty much spent his high school career blowing away everybody — the teachers who watch him load up his academic plate with college-level courses, and then ace them ... the administrators who see him find the time to be student body president, organize community food and blood drives, have his hand in seemingly every school-wide project ... and the fans who read about the two-year all-state defensive back in football and starting basketball point guard, then see this skinny little gym rat on the court and think ... that’s him? That kid? “Tell anybody in the stands I’m a two-time all-state corner and they wouldn’t believe it for a second,” grins Anderson. “In fact, our football coach told the announcer, kind of half-joking, to stop giving my height and weight because it wasn’t intimidating enough.” This, despite the fact that both his listed height (5-9) and weight (140) were already being hedged somewhat by an inch and five pounds. To say that Anderson is an overachiever would be appropriate. From his perspective, though, he’s just taking advantage of everything he’s been given — every inch and every minute. “You only get to go through high school once,” he says. “Might as well do everything possible that you can do.” Even if that means very little down-time? Always being on the go? “I think I get that from my mom,” says Anderson, whose parents were divorced when he was in eighth grade. “I gotta be involved, I gotta get my voice out. I can’t be sitting around while other people are making my decisions for me. I love to be right in the middle, making the decisions.” That’s one of the reason he loves playing point guard in basketball — which he considers his favorite sport, all those football accolades notwithstanding. “At point guard, I get to be in control,” he says. “I like being in control.” And when it comes to the goings-on at Zillah High, Anderson pretty much is. “He’s always at the school. Always,” says Zillah principal Kevin McKay, who also serves as an assistant basketball coach. “He starts the day off with announcements to the student body over the P.A., he takes the most challenging courses, he heads up all kinds of community help projects — food drives, blood drives, those kinds of things.” And those kinds of things never end. During the fall, there’s homecoming week — organizing the powder puff football game, the “Macho Volleyball” contest, the pep assembly — and in spring there’s the “Wacko Olympics.” And the ASB president has his hands in all of those things. And in between is the busiest time of Anderson’s school year. “I’d say the worst part was when we were going through our streak in football. That’s one of our busiest time for ASB, with finals, all the Christmas projects, the drives, the donation things we do,” he says. “You kind of have to take a deep breath, line up your priorities. Coaches always want you to be focused, but you really have to weigh everything, try to put everything in its place.”
There isn’t a circus performer in the world who’s a better juggler than
Kelly Anderson. All of that going on, and he still finds time to raise two
hogs — which he shows in 4H competitions — and keep his grade-point average
in the “He really impresses me,” his mother says. “He’s always been pretty involved in a lot of stuff, and I wonder the same thing sometimes — ‘You’re so busy, how do you find the time for all of this?’” But, she adds, it’s not like he’s up all night studying and he still finds time to watch plenty of TV. “Sports,” LeAnn Anderson says. “He’s always watching sports on TV.”
Anderson doesn’t really know what he wants to do with his life, but he knows
where he wants to be next year — at the University of Washington, studying
... “I love that kind of stuff, man,” he says. “I’m really interested in politics right now.” Maybe, after a few more years of Anderson finding the time to juggle a hundred different projects every day, the rest of us will have to find a little time ... in case we end up needing to vote for him.
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