Date: Fri 23-Aug-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KIMH

Quick Words:

Ann-Anderson-Hall

Full Text:

Hall of Fame - Ann Anderson

Miss Andy.

So simple a name, but one that served as a badge of honor, an expression of

genuine affection for the woman who spent 30 years of her life teaching and

coaching and . . . well, nurturing . . . the young female athletes in the town

of Newtown.

Deann LeBeau, who came to Newtown in 1964, almost 20 years after Ann Anderson

took over the girls' physical education department at the high school (when it

was still on the grounds where now stands the Newtown Middle School) remembers

Miss Andy well.

"She used to tell me stories how she used to take the school bus and go teach

phys ed at the little school house on Whisconier Road," said Miss LeBeau. "She

used to ride the school bus with the kids. She told me how the Hawley School

kids had no gym and she would walk the kids up the town hall and have a P.E.

class there, then march them back down to school."

Miss Andy came to Newtown High School during the 1944-45 school year and

immediately took over the girls' P.E. department . . . which meant coaching

girls' basketball, girls' soccer, girls' softball and, later, field hockey,

cross country and even gymnastics.

"She was the female P.E. department," said Miss LeBeau. "She was the only one

there when I came in 1964. She was a wonderful person. She loved the kids, was

enthusiastic about what she was doing, and got really involved in all kinds of

things."

Joan Crick - known as Joan Glover at the time - was there in the very early

stages of Miss Andy's career in Newtown and remembers how a so-so physical

education regimen really became something under Miss Andy's guidance.

"I looked for forward to gym class," Mrs Crick said. "She brought in lots of

different field events, things we never had before, and if you had any ability

she was right there to promote it."

The girls Miss Andy found for her basketball team in the 1940s and '50s had a

lot of ability, it seems. From the 1944-45 season, her first as coach of what

was the Hawley School girls' basketball team, right through the 1953-54

season, Miss Andy watched as her girls won 96 games, lost just three and tied

three others, while captured four Housatonic Valley Schoolmen's League

championships in the six years that league players were sponsored.

In that time, the Hawley School girls put together eight undefeated seasons

and winning streaks measuring 29 and 35 games. No team, in those 10 seasons,

suffered more than one loss.

Wow.

"She always could bring out the best in anybody," said Mrs Crick, who played

for Miss Andy from 1946-47 through 1949-50. "She always had a twinkle in her

eye and a smile. You wanted to prove yourself to her. She didn't say an awful

lot, but you knew just by looking at her that she was proud."

Which was most of the time, considering a 96-3-3 basketball record in 10

seasons. But even when things weren't going so well - which was infrequent -

Miss Andy had a way of staying nonplused.

Mrs Crick remembered, "She'd lean her elbows on her knees and just watch and

watch. She'd never yell, but you just knew when she didn't like something. She

loved to see us do well and play well. She looked at us and that's all we

needed."

Miss Andy was prolific not only in basketball, though. When field hockey

became a part of the athletic landscape at Newtown High School, Miss Andy

started winning some more championships.

The Western Connecticut Conference had yet to be formed, but in 1960 the Lady

Indians were priming themselves by finishing 4-0-1 (two wins over Masuk and

one over New Milford). Four years later, in the infancy of the WCC, Miss Andy

led the Lady Indians to a 6-0 record and their first WCC title and watched as

her team not only remained undefeated, but did not allow a goal until the

final half of the final game of the season. After a bad season in 1968, in

which Newtown stumbled to a 1-4-4 record, the Lady Indians returned to

championship form in 1970 with a 6-0-2 mark.

There was no titles left after that.

Miss Andy coached softball for almost 30 years and when she retired following

the 1973-74 school year, Bob Sveda assumed control and rode the program

through the next 17 seasons until a guy by the name of Bob Zito, in 1992,

became only the third coach the program ever had.

"The kids loved her," said Miss LeBeau. "They responded well to her. She could

get them to do things that other people might not be able to get them to do.

She never yelled at anyone, but had a way she would kind of kid them into

things."

Miss Andy had a profound impact on hundreds of young female athletes . . . as

well as many of the coaches she worked alongside.

"I found myself saying things she might have said in certain situations," said

Miss LeBeau. "I thought about her a lot in my teaching career, after she

retired and I always said if I could be half the person she was as a P.E.

teacher that I would be successful."

When Miss Andy retired in 1974, she was sent off with a retirement party that

featured the re-appearance of many of the young women she coached - as far

back as the 1940s.

"She was one of my favorite, favorite people," said Mrs Crick.