Seemingly every one of Posnack’s 138 students wants to steal a moment with the star; after all, it’s the first time that a former NBA player has walked the halls of the school.
But it won’t be the last time. Anderson, after a 14-year NBA career, agreed last week to become the boys basketball coach at Posnack, replacing a local referee who coached the Class 1A team last year as a favor to the school’s athletic director.
Wait, what?
Yes, Kenny Anderson will coach a small Jewish high school in South Florida.
"This is where I belong, this is a good fit for me," Anderson said.
Anderson, 40, ended his NBA playing career in 2005. He filed for bankruptcy shortly thereafter. The more than $50 million that he had earned as a player had dwindled down to nothing. Anderson was broke, twice divorced and a distant father of the seven children he had with five different mothers.
He didn’t know what came after life in the NBA. He knew he wanted to coach — he wanted to teach the game that he knew so well, but the opportunities didn’t come.
He had a chance to be a head coach in the now-defunct Continental Basketball Association and the made-for-TV sport Slamball. But coaching the Atlanta Krunk and in a trampoline-basketball hybrid sport offered little credibility.
"It’s been a real humbling experience," Anderson said of his post-NBA life. "... I was eating humble pie for a couple, four or five years."
But after meeting his third wife, Natasha, Anderson began to come to grips with his new life station. He graduated from Miami’s St. Thomas University this past May at the request of his late mother, Joan. He focused on running basketball camps, motivational speaking and being a better father.
But Anderson still wanted to coach. An interview with University of Miami coach Jim Larranaga didn’t lead to a job.
"I’m sitting, pondering, for months, ’What am I going to do? What am I going to do?’." Anderson said.
Then, a harmless twitter conversation between a Georgia Tech basketball fan and Anderson developed into an opportunity.
Jay Doobrow (@JayDoobrow) tweets at plenty of celebrities and athletes, but few send messages back. Anderson, a stay-at-home dad in Pembroke Pines, did respond. Doobrow, whose two children attend Posnack, sent Anderson a message with his phone number, asking if he was interested in coaching at the school.
Anderson was, but he was also concerned that the school really wanted him.
Posnack Athletic Director Mitch Evron had a similar, although reversed, concern.
"I said ’Yeah, I’ll talk to Kenny Anderson, I’ll talk to Dwyane Wade, too,’." Evron said of Doobrow’s proposal.
Three meetings later, Kenny Anderson was hired.
"When I found out, I was pretty psyched," Jonah Wassersterom, a 10th-grade basketball player said. "He’s really coming here. It’s awesome. It’s a little shock, because, you know, (we’re a) small Jewish school."
It’s not about the money. Anderson will make little more than the normal coach’s stipend of $2,500, Evron said. For Anderson, it was about rekindling the competitive spirit that drove him during his NBA career in his new life.
"My challenge after leaving the pros was going back to school, that’s the only challenge I had. And I did that," Anderson said. "This is another challenge, and that’s what I feed off of."
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Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/basketball/celtics/view.bg?articleid=1364772
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