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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

A Tuesday Night Game No Way To End Brilliant Career

John Blanchette The Spokesman-R

So perhaps it will have to be a mini-series after all:

The Last of Don.

Yes, there have been longer goodbyes, but since Don Anderson’s send-off is still a goodbye-in-progress, we’re keeping the record keepers on the clock. No one is in a hurry, anyway.

Besides, it’s not being milked.

It’s being savored.

Take Gonzaga Prep’s 30-6 playoff victory over Richland at Albi Stadium on Tuesday evening, Anderson’s 272nd in a 36-year coaching career.

The Bullpups - and Anderson’s friends and admirers - got properly soppy and sentimental last week when he coached his last regular season Greater Spokane League game. Being his last something, emotions could be properly mixed, the moment anticipated, the finality official - if only technical.

“I left the field early and came up the ramp,” recalled Anderson’s defensive lieutenant, H.T. Higgins. “I watched the coach from up here, being carried off the field. It was almost like a dream. The whole season has been like that.

“It’s almost like it shouldn’t be real. Because we’ve been doing this for so long, it’s hard to believe that this is really it. And because of the way it’s gone - from Don not knowing whether he would even be able to coach this year to the kids we’ve had.”

This game? This was business. A mission. Prep in the playoffs. Again.

“Besides, it was Tuesday night,” Anderson pointed out. “This is just the first part of the practice week. It’s hard to wake up to the fact that you have a game, even.”

You had to figure he’d bring up practice.

Among the many things Don Anderson has been about in his quarter century at Prep, the duty - he’d probably call it the privilege - of preparation ranks pretty high. You can’t be married to the option the way he’s been without devotion to preparation - not when you have to get the right guy blocked every damn time, not when there’s the risk of every pitch wide looking like Norm Charlton might have thrown it.

A preparation guy like Don Anderson just has to despise a Tuesday game.

“It’s weird, all right,” he said. “Our style is to scheme it. Well, you can’t in two days. We tried to get complicated last year in a short period of time and it didn’t work.”

The Bullpups got blasted. Gave up 48 points. This time, they had a shutout going for as long as it mattered.

Old Pup. New trick.

“I’ve coached with him for 16 years,” said Higgins, who played for Anderson before that, “and he’s a better coach today than he was five or 10 years ago. He still adjusts - to situations, to kids - and that’s why he’s still successful.”

Two series for the offense, a couple for the defense and the Prep staff knew what it needed to know. Anderson drew it up in Magic Marker on the sideline, took his eye off the action for a moment to teach it - knowing it would be grasped, and quickly, thanks to the care taken to prepare weeks ago, when there was time.

Now there’s a little more time. Now it’s Saturday’s game against Kamiakin that could be Anderson’s last.

Or just his next.

“It couldn’t be better than this,” Anderson insisted, “no matter how it ends.”

Every game is a gift. Complications from minor surgery last summer threatened to hasten his retirement, one reason he treasures each week’s reprieve - which doesn’t mean he’s dreading the end, necessarily.

“I’ll have to stay close to the excitement somehow,” he said.

“I’ll say,” offered his wife, Monna.

“She’s worried about that, too,” Anderson laughed.

But the last thing Anderson wanted was a farewell tour. His depth of feeling for the extended family of Prep football is too genuine to muddy the works for his final team with too much Gipperish goop.

He kept the expectations modest. He kept the focus on the kids, as always, and away from himself. He demanded as much from his staff.

But the roots run deep.

“I’ve grown up with Prep football,” said linebacker Kevin Cronin. “I remember going to the Kingbowl as a little kid and watching Prep in 1986, hoping I could do that one day.”

So what surprised him the most when Anderson went from being somebody else’s coach to his coach?

“That he’s a great friend,” said Cronin. “That’s what makes it such a pleasure.”

Anderson would have you believe that the pleasure is all his. But there isn’t a Prep senior who won’t cherish the distinction of being the Don’s last.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review