Ex-'Dog can't quit at age 51

Published online on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009

When Ron Anderson talks to his mother on the phone, she sometimes can't believe his voice. "You speak strange," she says.

She lives in Chicago, in the house Anderson bought her.

He lives in Cholet, France, in the country where basketball took him, or at least where he followed it. The city is two hours southwest of Paris, a short drive to the Atlantic Ocean, where he now speaks French so fluently he has an accent and forgets English words, where he is recognized pretty much everywhere he goes, where he knows the mayor well, and could probably run for the office himself.

Instead, he plays basketball and works security at a national grocery store chain.

Just to clarify, Anderson doesn't play basketball down at the YMCA, or in a recreation league, or at the local playground. He plays for La Seguiniere, an amateur team in the National 3 league. The 2009 season has started and Anderson scored 27, 26 and 26 points, in the first three games.

It is, indeed, the same Ron Anderson who was born on the South Side of Chicago in 1958, the same Ron Anderson who was famously bagging groceries years after high school, the same Ron Anderson who reappeared and took the Fresno State Bulldogs to the 1983 NIT championship. How long ago was that? Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video hadn't even aired yet.

And Ron Anderson is still playing. He turns 51 years old this week. He's basketball's Iron Man. Its George Foreman. Its Tom Watson, walking up the 18th at this year's British.

"I really can't explain it," Anderson says into the phone, church bells clanging in the distance. "I think it's very very exceptional. Basketball is in my blood. You can't imagine how much I love it."

He could still be playing in the French pro leagues, but those teams practice every day, something his legs wouldn't appreciate, and his amateur team practices only a couple times a week. It also pays him, which is nice.

"When he played for me," says Boyd Grant, who coached Anderson at Fresno State all those years ago, "he could have played three games in a row. He never got tired. I used to get tired just watching him."

Anderson's endurance is so unbelievable, the Fresno Athletic Hall of Fame has been putting off his induction for 12 years. He was originally elected in 1997 and the Hall has been patiently waiting for him to retire, mostly because the ceremony occurs during Anderson's season in France.

But he just kept playing and playing, and so this year the organizers finally gave up and are going to induct him anyway. Anderson filmed an acceptance speech that they're going to play during the ceremony in Fresno on Nov. 5. He'll be the Academy Award winner who couldn't make it because he was filming a movie somewhere.

It's a shame he won't be here, because it's one of the most impressive classes ever: Laura Berg, Trent Dilfer, Tom Goodwin, Marquez Pope. It also seemed like a good year to honor Anderson, considering the entire 1983 Fresno State basketball team is being inducted.

The video can't show everything, though, and so to recap: After being drafted out of Fresno State in 1984, Anderson played 10 years in the NBA. He was very good. Then he played six years of pro ball, mostly in France. Then he took some French classes, bought a house in France, became a citizen, and has played 10 years of amateur basketball.

Let's see, he got divorced a long time ago. His son, Ron Anderson Jr., didn't talk to him for five years or so after that, didn't understand why his father had divorced his mother and left them in the United States. Anderson's mom told her son to be patient. Her grandson would come around. Finally, last summer Ron Jr. called and four days later was on plane to France. The dad couldn't stop smiling for days after that.

"A week and a half of a dream," Anderson says.

Ron Jr. plays basketball at South Florida, where he just transferred this season from Kansas State.

"I'm happy for him," Anderson says. "I was a little disappointed he didn't ask my opinion [on transferring]."

When he was playing in the French pro league, Anderson met a woman and eventually moved in with her. They have a 6-year-old daughter named Angie Venus Anderson. Ron Jr. got to meet Angie last summer for the first time.

"I don't think I'm going to get married again," Anderson says. "It wasn't a bad experience, but once is probably enough."

As for money, Anderson was never great with it, probably because he doesn't care about it that much. He'd give his last $10 away if he felt like it, and has before.

"The money's going to be there," he says. "I'm happy with my life in general. I could live in Timbuktu. It doesn't matter to me."

When he's finished playing, he wants to open an after-school center for kids, and he wants to coach teenagers at basketball.

"Every year I say I'm going to stop," he says. "One day my legs are going to tell me, 'Ron, it's time.' "

So to the youth of France, the Fresno Hall of Fame has a message: Don't hold your breath.