Pasco: Coaching dean earns stripes

Coaching dean earns stripes

A win tonight against Eastside High School in Gainesville would put the Rams of Ridgewood High coaching legend Gary Anders in the final four.

By JAMAL THALJI, Times Staff Writer

NEW PORT RICHEY -- The striped pants.

Forget, for just a moment, Ridgewood High School boys basketball coach Gary Anders' 23 years and 403 career wins. Forget that he has served more years and won more games than any other Pasco County coach -- ever. Forget his far-reaching influence on, and the respect he has earned from, players and coaches, friends and foes.

Just think about the striped pants.

For the past four seasons, when Anders' Rams have taken the court for warmups, they've worn blue-and-white striped pants, patterned after Indiana University's famous candy-striped warmups. For years Anders scoured catalogs just to find them.

If there's one thing that need be known about the dean of Pasco County coaches, about the most influential man in local basketball, it is this:

He loves the striped pants -- and all they stand for.

"You're darn straight I do," said Anders, 50. "I guess growing up in Indiana, that's the one little connection I have with Indiana basketball."

He has more than one connection. His success, his style, his impact on Pasco County, all harken back to Indiana as well.

Next up could be another Indiana tradition: the state tournament. Anders has won seven county titles and three district titles but still is chasing his first trip to state. Tonight, Anders' Rams travel to Eastside High School in Gainesville for a 7:30 p.m. game with a berth in the state final four in Lakeland on the line.

This season, that is all he has focused on. Which is why as Anders approached his 400th career win -- then got it on Feb. 18 -- he chose not to celebrate.

"I'll be perfectly honest with you, there's two reasons why I don't want to make a big deal out of it," he said. "No. 1, that's just the way I want it. Even if I didn't get it this year, I'll get it next year, so I (wasn't) worried about getting 400.

"The year the team is having is more important to me. I'm not in it for how many wins I get. I'm trying to get this team as many wins as I can. The most important game is the next game."

That's Anders. If basketball is a religion in Indiana, then Anders has been a missionary in Florida since landing his first head coaching job at Hudson High School in 1978. He cites former Saint Leo University coach Norm Kaye as a great influence, along with former Gulf High football coach Wilbur Lofton and friend Larry Beets, Ridgewood's baseball coach with whom he went to college at Austin Peay.

But in the end it always comes back to Indiana. Its values. Its ideals. Its meaning. That's what Anders, a three-sports star in his native Columbia City, is all about. Even if he's often compared to a famous college coach from another state: North Carolina.

"He's the Dean Smith of Pasco County," said River Ridge boys basketball coach Bill Linderman, a player under Anders in 1987-88.

The kids are different. The parents are different. The hours, different. Anders isn't, Linderman said.

"He's the so-called grandfather of basketball here," Linderman said. "He's been here longer than anyone else, especially with the turnover you have now. "

"When I played, it was put the ball down in February and you're down until next November. Now it's pretty much year-round. It wears on you and there's no increase in pay. He's able to deal with that.

For local players, Anders is a factor early on.

"He was the first coach in the area to offer Saturday leagues and summer camps," said his wife, Mary, 51, a teacher at Ridgewood. "When he started coaching basketball, kids got to the middle and high school level and didn't even know what a double-dribble was. (He helped) put together the organizations 20 years ago that changed basketball in this county."

But her admiration goes beyond basketball. Her former husband, Michael Pasqualle, was a teacher at Ridgewood when he was killed in a 1990 hit-and-run accident. Afterward, the two were introduced to each other at the school. They married 20 years ago, and Anders helped raise her sons Michael, Matthew and Mark (now 27, 26 and 24). The couple then had two children of their own: Joe, 20, and Beth, 18.

"When I met him, I was a widow with a 5-, 4- and 2-year-old," Mary Anders said. "The thing I admire the most about him was his ability to take on that responsibility. There's not that many men out there willing to raise too many children as his own. The values he put into my boys and the countless number of boys without fathers he's been a father figure to, to me, that's why I admire him the most."