Volleyball's 25: Heidi Anderson
Monday, August 4, 2008 | Volleyball
By: Sean Cartell
UF Communications
Editor's Note: This is the first of a 25-part daily series on GatorZone.com honoring the great players in Florida volleyball history (in no particular rank or order) leading up to the start of the 25th season since Gator volleyball was reinstated as a varsity sport prior to the 1984 campaign.
If you're looking for someone to tell the tale of the turnaround in Florida volleyball under head coach Mary Wise, there may be no better person to pull your chair up next to than All-America setter Heidi Anderson (1989-92).
Anderson, a 5-foot-5 setter, headed west from a volleyball hotbed in Yorba Linda, Calif., to what was – at the time – a successful, yet largely unknown Florida volleyball program to compete for former head coach Marilyn McReavy.
A four-year varsity player at Esperanza High School, which had won 11 consecutive league championships, a two-time Empire League MVP and the Los Angeles Times Athlete of the Year as a senior, Anderson had been a member of the Asics Tiger club team in California, which won the 1987 Junior Olympic national championship in the 15-and-under division. She had become her high school's first-ever four-year varsity volleyball letterwinner and, at the time of graduation held the league record for assists.
Anderson accomplished all of that despite not having picked up a volleyball until the eighth grade.
And though she excelled on the court, thanks in large part to her California upbringing and natural athleticism, Anderson admitted she initially chose Florida for its strength on the academic side of things.
“When I chose Florida, I considered the academic reputation of the school more than anything,” Anderson said in a Nov. 16, 1991 GatorTalk article featuring her academic success. “I would rather have gone to a school where my degree would make a big difference than a volleyball power that was not academically strong. Volleyball is only four years, and a degree lasts forever. Little did I know when I came here that we would be ranked No. 5 in two years.”
Some might have even said she was destined to be a Gator setter. According to a Sept. 19, 1992 article by Chris Harry in the Tampa Tribune, her sister bought her a specialty license plate for her 16th birthday that said “LIL SETR.” When she got her car the summer before her junior year of high school, the interior was orange and blue.
Anderson quickly made her presence known after arriving in Gainesville in the fall of 1989. She earned the starting setter position as a rookie and, her 708 assists on the season, moved her to fifth on Florida's all-time career assists list after just one year. She also was fifth in the SEC that season in service aces per game and finished the season with 49 aces.
Though she often played as one of two setters in a 6-2 offense during the 1989 season, McReavy opted to adopt a 5-1 offense designed to take full advantage of Anderson's prolific offensive leadership.
“Heidi Anderson is a major key to our program,” McReavy said in the outlook section of the team's 1990 media guide. “She did a lot of training this summer.”
Her sophomore season, under the direction of coaching consultant Mary Jo Peppler, who participated in the 1964 Olympics and was named the Most Outstanding Player of the 1970 World Games, Anderson continued to excel.
Anderson started every game of the season and set the UF record for individual assists in a match with 72 against Florida State and finished the season with 1,208 dishes. She ascended three sports to move up to second place on the school's all-time assists list with 1,911. She finished third in the SEC that season with 11.9 assists per game.
And while the 1990 campaign was a successful campaign for Anderson, it was something that happened in the offseason following that year that made Anderson and the Florida program into almost overnight national powers.
Wise, then the associate head coach at Kentucky, was hired to coach the Gators, determined to take Florida into the national spotlight. She quickly found out that Anderson was one of the cornerstones on which the program could be built.
One of Wise's goals when taking over the Florida volleyball program was to make the Gainesville community literate in the sport of volleyball. Often choosing to make analogies to Florida's football program, Wise explained in a Sept. 6, 1991 article in the Alligator, the importance of Anderson's role on her first team as head coach.
“No doubt about it, Heidi is the quarterback on this team,” Wise said. “She is very competitive, and so long as it is successful, she is willing to try lots of new things.”
New things are exactly what Wise had in store for Anderson who, entering her junior season was just 434 assists away from the school's career record in that category. Several changes were made in order to maximize the setter's potential to help the team.
Watching from the Kentucky bench the season before, Wise had been impressed with the power of All-SEC outside hitter Steffi Legall. She wanted to design a system in which Anderson could best set up Legall, among other offensive weapons, to make the team's hitters the focus of the Gator attack.
“We adjusted Heidi's technique some at first,” Wise told the Alligator. “Then we changed the whole system from a setter-directed offense to a hitter-directed offense.”
While on paper, that may have taken some of the attention away from Anderson, she thrived under the system and was completely supportive of the move by Wise. The team-first attitude suited Anderson's personality and brought out her best performances.
“Overall, my goal clearly is to give the hitters the best possible set,” Anderson told the Alligator. “I have been working on my setting and my choices at the net. About three-quarters of the time since the season started, I have come early to practice.”
Anderson again benefited from some outstanding setting instructors. Wise had been Purdue's starting setter on the team's 1979 and 1980 Big Ten Championship teams and assistant coach Katie Weismiller had a been a four-year starter at setter and an All-Southland Conference player at the University of Texas-Arlington, helping the Mavericks go from being an unranked team to a top-20 squad that made two NCAA Tournament appearances.
“With two former setters in Katie and I training her, Heidi will have an incredible amount of feedback,” Wise said in the 1991 media guide. “She should benefit from our experience, improving her choice of set and deceptiveness.”
On Sept. 20, 1991, Anderson broke the Florida all-time career assists record in the second game of a match against Florida State. UF handed FSU a 3-0 loss, the first time the Gators had posted a victory against the Seminoles in Tallahassee since 1985.
“I'm glad she picked the FSU match to do it,” quipped Wise, who quickly earned respect for the intrastate rivalry between the Gators and Seminoles.
That would become just a first in a season of, well, firsts for the Gators.
The next week, Florida cracked into the national rankings for the first time in program history. The Gators were ranked No. 17 in the American Volleyball Coaches Association poll after an upset of No. 13 USCB in a tournament hosted by Cal State Fullerton.
Virginia fought Florida closely in a Sept. 29 match in the Florida Gym before the Gators pulled away for a 15-7, 15-10, 15-11 victory. Anderson shined with 61 assists in the match, but was quick to credit her hitters.
“The numbers are great,” Anderson told Hugh Hencken of The Gainesville Sun. “But without the great hitters at the net, it would be hard to have them.”
And then it happened – what Anderson would later in the season call her greatest moment in a Florida uniform. It was the statement win that the Gators were looking for – and they got it.
Anderson had a career-high 73 assists as the Gators toppled No. 5 LSU in a five-game thriller in the O'Connell Center in front of what was then a school-record crowd of 2,642 fans.
“With the way Heidi can set the ball, it is almost always an easy kill,” said junior Suzanne Hughes in an Oct. 5 article by the Gainesville Sun.
“The win against LSU was great,” Anderson said. “Especially knowing that they are two-time SEC Champions, they were ranked No. 5 and they went to the Final Four last year. We beat the same people that we lost to last year.”
The victory against LSU was part of a 23-match winning streak that ended in the finals of the SEC Tournament, when LSU got revenge with a 3-0 win to claim the tournament crown.
“It's hard to imagine that we're compared with Hawaii, UCLA, Long Beach State, Louisiana State and other teams in the top 10,” Anderson said in an Oct. 25, 1991 match-day program featuring her picture on the front cover. “”I'm playing with a team that is as good as those types of top-ranked teams.”
Florida advanced to the final eight of the NCAA Tournament that season before falling to LSU in the regional final. Just like her team, Anderson set a number of milestones that season, becoming the first Gator to break the 3,000-assist mark for her career. She averaged 11.97 assists per game in 1991, which ranked fourth in the SEC and earned Academic All-SEC honors for the second year in a row. Anderson was the only Gator to start and play in every game of every match that season.
“Night in and night out, Heidi comes in ready to play the setting position, which is the place in which you must have the most consistency,” Wise said in a Nov. 16, 1991 article in GatorTalk. “She provides stability and leadership that are invaluable to our team.”
By her senior season, despite the hitter-dominant offense, Anderson had become the team's leader.
“Heidi is really the key for us,” Wise told the Tampa Tribune. “She's the one who makes it all happen. Our offense is very complicated, but that's not a problem for her because she is so intelligent. That's evident in the type of student she is and that's evident in how she plays a match. It is really fun to coach that type of player. You can never give her too much information.”
For the player who came to Florida for its academics, it was her cerebral side that allowed her to excel over others at her position.
“To be a good setter, you have to know not only your position but everyone else's,” Anderson said. “After a while, you start to know your hitters and learn their tendencies. I have to be able to adjust to that. I know I've succeeded if the hitters succeed.”
The Gators won 20 of their first 21 matches in 1992, with their lone loss coming to top-ranked UCLA. That bolted Florida to No. 6 in the national polls.
In an article in USA Today on Oct. 30, 1992, Wise told Harry Blauvelt “The cupboard certainly wasn't bare when I arrived. It was a matter of veteran players and new ones responding to what we wanted to do. We've had talent, chemistry and some luck.”
Ranked fifth in the national polls, Florida swept through the rest of the regular season and captured the SEC Volleyball Tournament with a four-game win against LSU in Birmingham, Ala. Anderson was named to the All-Tournament Team, dishing out 68 assists in the championship match.
Ranking fourth in the nation in attendance at the time of the NCAA selection, Florida was awarded a host site. The Gators routed Florida State in the first round of the tournament to extend its home winning streak to 37 matches.
“I feel we play with a lot more confidence at home,” Anderson told Jim Harvin of Gator Bait on Dec. 10, 1992. “Our crowds always make us play a little bit better. I'm glad we have the team we do.”
The Gators fought off Kentucky in a three-game match that lasted more than two hours to advance to the regional final against Texas. Florida, in dramatic fashion, came back from a two-game deficit to knock off the Longhorns and advance to their first-ever Final Four. Anderson served the final point of the match and was named to the NCAA All-South Region team.
Florida fell to UCLA for a second time on the season in the Final Four but, despite the loss, had elevated itself to a true national contender.
“The loss hasn't hit me yet,” Anderson said in a press conference following the match. “It's hard to accept that it happened so quickly.”
Anderson finished her career with 4,855 assists, which at the time ranked first in Florida volleyball history. She averaged 10.89 assists per game over the course of her career and served 169 aces, which at the time of her graduation ranked second all-time at UF. She was a second-team All-America selection by the AVCA in 1992 and earned Academic All-America recognition each of her last two seasons.
“I am really excited about where our program has gone,” Anderson told the Gainesville Sun. “I would rather be part of a building tradition, than to try to carry on a tradition. Because everybody is going to remember back when Florida became an outstanding program, and I am glad I was a part of that.”
