By: Joey Mullins
 
Today, we continue our series named the S-Club Profile, focusing on former student-athletes and giving updates on what they have been up to since finishing their Samford careers. In today's fourth edition, we will highlight Buddy Anderson, who played football for the Bulldogs from 1968 to 1971.
 
After graduating from Samford in 1972, Anderson went on to a 49-year career as a high school football coach, teacher and athletics director, which led him to become the all-time winningest football coach in the history of the state of Alabama. Along the way, he also became a member of both the Alabama High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame and National Federation of State High Schools Association Hall of Fame. He was also inducted as a member of the 1971 Samford football team into the Samford Athletics Hall of Fame in 2019.
 
Anderson knew from an early age that he wanted to be a high school coach. His father, AHSAA Hall of Famer Dovey Anderson, was a high school coach, but Anderson said he felt a calling from God to become a high school coach during his senior year in high school.
 
"I was called to be a high school coach on January 12, 1968," Anderson said. "I know where I was, I know the circumstance. It was no bolt of lightning and no audible voice, God just spoke to my heart."
 
 
Anderson enrolled at Samford University in the fall of 1968. He said his family had a long history with the school. Both of his parents attended Samford when it was Howard College. In fact, his father was a member of the 1927 Howard team that opened Legion Field with a 9-0 win over Birmingham-Southern. Additionally, he had three aunts that went to Howard, his brother and sister-in-law went to Samford, and he even met his wife, Linda, at the school. He said he did look at some other schools, but he just felt led to go to Samford.
 
"It was just how God worked things out for me to be there," Anderson said. "I had looked at Alabama and Auburn, but Samford was the place for me."
 
In his senior season in the fall of 1971, Anderson and his Samford teammates won the NCAA West Region championship with a 20-10 win over Ohio Wesleyan. When asked about the experience, Anderson talked about the closeness he and his teammates developed over his collegiate career.
 
"We developed a bond and it was like a brotherhood," Anderson said. "We were there for one another and we played for one another. It was just a tremendous bond. If I needed one of my teammates, all I had to do is call them and if they needed me, all they had to do is call me. It was just something that developed as the years went on."
 
Anderson graduated from Samford in 1972 with a degree in physical education and a minor in math. Anderson talked about some of his favorite memories from his time at the school.
 
"I wasn't a member of a fraternity or anything, because the football team was my fraternity, and that was the brotherhood that I was involved with," Anderson said. "I got a great education, I met my wife there, and I made a lot of great friends, not only in football, but outside of football. I had some great professors, some that I still talk about today that were genuinely concerned about me."
 
Anderson was hired as an assistant coach and PE and math teacher at Vestavia Hills High School after graduating from Samford in 1972. He was promoted to head coach in 1978 and stayed in that role until 2020. Anderson said he felt prepared for the job because of what his professors at Samford taught him.
 
"I had a unique experience," Anderson said. "Dr. (Avalee) Willoughby (from the Samford PE department), she was a tough disciplinarian, tough with what she expected. And she prepared you not only for what to expect in the classroom or what to expect with your classes, but she prepared you for the practical."
 
Anderson credited Dr. Avalee Willoughby, coaches J.T. Haywood and John Lee Armstrong, and Ramona Washburn and Lela Anne Brewer with helping prepare him for his career. He said his professors prepared their students for doing all of the little things that high school coaches have to take care of in addition to coaching.
 
"That helped prepare me when I first started," Anderson said. "But I was very well acquainted with the practical things of coaching because it's not like college where you had somebody else doing that stuff for you, you had to do it yourself. I had a leg up on everybody."
 
When Anderson took over as head coach in 1978, the expectations were not extremely high for his first team as a head coach. Despite that, after a slow start, the team wound up making it to the state championship game, before eventually falling to Jefferson Davis High School. The following year, his team once again reached the state finals, falling by one point to Enterprise, 14-13.
 
In his third season, the Rebels broke through and won the first state championship in school history. Vestavia Hills defeated Parker High School, 15-13, to reach the pinnacle of a state title. Anderson credited his players and assistant coaches for the great success the program had early in his tenure as the head coach.
 
"We just had a great run of kids and I was very blessed to have great coaches with me," Anderson said. "That first staff I had Peter Braasch, who ended up being with me for about 38 or 40 years as my defensive coordinator. Sammy Dunn, who is probably the best baseball coach to ever come out of the state of Alabama, but people don't know what a great football coach he was also. Jim Jeffrey was a great coach and great motivator. Bruce Evans coached with me for over 30 years. I was just very blessed with great coaches beside me, and we had great kids. We worked them hard, but we were just very much blessed."
 
In 1981, Anderson took on the added responsibility of serving as the school's athletics director. During his time as AD, Vestavia teams won nearly 50 state championships.
 
Anderson won his second football state championship in 1998, 18 years after his first title. The Rebels earned that second championship with a 10-7 victory over Vigor High School. When looking back at his career, Anderson talked about three bits of advice his dad gave him when he told him he wanted to be a coach.
 
"The first thing my dad told me was you need to get something you can teach, and that's why I minored in math," Anderson said. "The second thing he told me was that the pros can go out and draft a player, they can trade for one or they can purchase one. The colleges recruit who they want to fill in their needs, but in high school, you take who momma and daddy give you. And sometimes, momma and daddy give you great kids, but they're not great athletes and you have to develop them and play with them. That was one of the truest statements he ever told me. We just played with who we had in our community and who we had going to our school. Sometimes they were not great athletes. They were great kids, but were not great athletes, but we tried to get the maximum out of them we could. The third thing my dad told me was a rolling rock doesn't gather too much moss. And I said, what in the world are you talking about? He said find some place to put down some roots and don't be jumping around. I never dreamed I would be at Vestavia 49 years later, but I am."
 
Anderson retired from coaching last June, but was talked into coaching for one more season, due to the situation involving the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
The Vestavia team entered the 2020 season with only one starter back on defense, so it was going to be a trying season even without the pandemic. The team was unable to have its normal spring practice. The Rebels went through summer workouts, but the first week they could have full practices, they had to shut down due to positive COVID tests.
 
After being shut down for two weeks, the team started back practice on the week they were supposed to open the season, meaning the first two games had to be canceled. The Rebels scrimmaged for the first time the following week and then opened the next week against state powerhouse Hoover, who had already played two games, losing a close game. The team then had a narrow loss to a good Oak Mountain team that was playing its fourth contest of the season.
 
Anderson said, after a few games, the team started turning the corner and ended the season, and his career, on a strong note. After defeating Tuscaloosa County, the team lost close games to eventual state champion Thompson and perennial power Hewitt-Trussville, before ending on a winning streak.
 
"We ended up winning the last three," Anderson said. "Our team developed as the year went on, we got better and better and better. But those two weeks really took a bite out of us. Of course, the whole year, we couldn't even get in our locker room all at the same time because of COVID. We couldn't have that many kids dressing at the same time, so we had to dress in shifts. We dressed in shifts after practice, dressed in shifts for home games. It was just a lot of stuff we had to do because of this COVID situation."
 
Anderson has earned many honors during his long coaching career. In addition to the halls of fame and other awards he has won, Vestavia named its field Buddy Anderson Field in 2002. Anderson talked about what the honor meant to him.
 
"I was just totally blown away and felt unworthy," Anderson said. "Because I felt like it needed to have all of the coaches that coached with me, have their names on it and I feel like it does. They are very much a big part of everything we've done. But, I'm very honored to that and, of course, our stadium is named after Coach (Thompson) Reynolds, the coach that hired me. I'm just very honored to have my name in association with his name."
 
Throughout his entire career, Anderson has had one constant, his wife Linda, beside him. He talked about what it has meant to have her support throughout his career at Vestavia.
 
"It has been a blessing," Anderson said. "God put us together. His wisdom is so much greater than ours, we can't see a lot of things we think we can. It was not until after my first year, we had gone to a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp in North Carolina, and at the end of that, my wife said, God called you to be a high school coach, this week he's called me to be a high school coach's wife. Not to say that everything has been perfect, but she has been perfectly committed to being a coach's wife. This situation has been really tough on her. She's having a hard time with it, because this is all she's known our whole married life. But, God will provide and God is good and God is in charge."
 
For more information on the S-Club, contact Hal Langston at hlangst1@samford.edu. For giving opportunities, please contact Maggie Rountree at mrountr1@samford.edu.