Mike Anderson memorial plaque unveiled at BHS courts

Published 10:06 am Saturday, May 30, 2015

A memorial plaque for former head coach of the Bainbridge High School varsity coed tennis team Mike Anderson was unveiled in an intimate and informal dedication ceremony last Friday at the school’s courts.

Anderson, a BHS teacher for 19 years, passed away in September in a tragic drowning accident.

The dedication ceremony was arranged by student athletes, primarily the varsity team captains Holt Ogden, Raya Deussen and Ben Devries, as well as their parents and other supporters of Bainbridge tennis.

In attendance were students and former students, as well as friends and family, some of whom shared stories and memories of the coach, including Anderson’s long-time volunteer assistant Uly Cheng.

“Mike was a creature of habit,” Cheng told the gathered crowd. “He wore the same hat. Every year, he’d buy a new one, but he’ll wear the same one — the old one — because he didn’t want to jinx anything.

“On the bus, he always sits on the left hand side of the bus, second row,” he added. “That’s his seat. On the ferry, left hand side, right by the galley. The same table, the same seat, every time, and he’ll carry his white notebook up and that’s when he did his starting sequence.”

Now, in honor of Anderson’s methodical ways, the memorial plaque will be placed permanently in his favorite spot to stand and watch the matches, the small ledge to the left of the main courts which overlooks the lower court spaces.

There is room enough for only one person to stand out on the ledge, Deussen explained, and it was Anderson’s favorite spot to watch from.

Throughout his 12 years of coaching with Anderson, Cheng remembered, the head coach led the team through some great matches and spectacular seasons, though one achievement did elude him.

A victory over Seattle Preparatory, Cheng laughed, just didn’t seem to be in the cards for Anderson. The school has an unparalleled record, he explained, and the Spartans continually tried and failed to end their dynasty.

Dramatic speeches and the promise of bribery didn’t seem to gather the motivation needed, so Anderson tried something a little different.

The head coach showed up to the bus before a pivotal match against Prep “five or six years ago,” Cheng remembered, with a large bag full of fortune cookies. He passed them out to the students, who found that they were all, according to the cookies, bound for the same fate

“They opened it up, and everyone just went bananas,” Cheng laughed, remembering the students’ reactions when they found that every single fortune read “Beat Prep!”

They did not, not at that match, at least (though they would the very next season), but it remains one of Cheng’s favorite memories of his time with the team.

Maybe Anderson was just looking a little further ahead than the rest of them, he said.

He later found out, he added, that Anderson had spent the entire night before the match removing fortunes from the cookies he’d bought and replacing them with the Spartan-centric ones he’d printed.

It’s harder than you’d think, as it turns out, a fact which Cheng was to find out personally. He came to the dedication ceremony with fortune cookies for the players bound for the state tournament this year, in honor of Anderson, all of which read “Beat Lakeside.”

“You can’t get them out!” he laughed, describing the arduous task of fortune transplanting. “You ruin about five for every one you get.”

Anderson’s wife Kim thanked those in attendance and the program supporters who arranged the plaque.

“He loved this game,” she said. “He loved the school, he loved the students. He had many, many, many friends and followers.

The plaque will be permanently placed after renovations to the courts are completed.