By ERIC RUEB
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Members of the Coventry girls basketball team, waiting for the North Kingstown-Cranston East freshman boys basketball game to end, couldn’t help but talk about the immense height of the North Kingstown freshman coach. A few boys on the Cranston East junior varsity basketball team, waiting for the bus to take them to their game that night, walked ever-so-quietly to get a closer look before scurrying back to the wooden bleachers when he rose from his seat.

North Kingstown’s freshman coach is Michael Andersen and if the name sounds familiar, it should be.

From 1993-1997, Andersen turned himself from a European project to one of the better centers the University of Rhode Island has ever had, helping the team to the NCAA Tournament in his senior season where the Rams lost to Purdue.

After college, Andersen played professionally in Europe for 12 seasons, starting with AEK Athens Basketball Club in Greece before making stops in Italy, Poland, another team in the Greek league before finishing off his career with AEK.

With his playing days behind him and his wife Ellen - who he met while attending URI - keeping him in Jamestown, where the couple made their off-season home, Andersen begins a new stage of his basketball life - as a coach.

“As I grew older and became the veteran on pro teams, I saw I was teaching younger guys how to do stuff and I saw it as something I liked,” Andersen said after coaching the NK freshmen team to a 40-25 win over Warwick Veterans on Jan. 7. “Then it started in my head and it was like why not. You’ve been playing basketball for 20 years now, so what else are you going to do?”

---

North Kingstown varsity coach Aaron Thomas had an opening on his staff.

With Kevin Gormley leaving the North Kingstown basketball program to focus on family and the high school baseball team - which he coaches - Thomas needed someone to take over as freshman basketball coach.

Jim Simmons, one of Thomas’ assistants, had a good idea. Simmons knew Andersen and had seen him around Jamestown and mentioned him as a possibility to Thomas. Thomas knew who Andersen was without seeing or meeting him.

“Once I heard the name it came right back to me,” Thomas says. “I knew who he was, his number and all that stuff.”

Thomas spoke with Andersen over the summer and everything looked good, until the school district decided it was thinking about cutting the freshman program.

When cooler heads prevailed and Thomas had his team, he knew who he wanted to coach.

“Anytime a guy who played college basketball and has that kind of experience, it’s good to have,” Thomas says. “The kids look at him, and obviously he’s tall so they have to look up to him, but the kids know he’s played the game and he’s played the game so they can learn a lot from him.”

---

Michael Andersen had never been to Rhode Island before being recruited by Al Skinner. The trip from Denmark to Kingston isn’t one you just decide to do on a whim.

He started his freshman year as a project player, and fans had a hard time grasping the concept of a seven-footer struggling to play basketball.

By the time he finished at Kingston, he was the school’s second-leading shot-blocker and developed into a player head to the pros.

But there is one game many URI fans remember, and a game Andersen will never forget.

Tied with Purdue in a first-round NCAA Tournament game and the clock winding down, Andersen rebounded a Tyson Wheeler jumper and had the game-winner in his sights. He missed and URI went on to lose in overtime.

“I had the last one, a rebound and the time to get a shot off and I missed,” Andersen says. “I still think about that to this day.”

All wasn’t lost for Andersen. His career at Rhode Island was over and the professional leagues were calling.

It wasn’t the NBA, but it was OK.

“When I came out, they made a rule that Europeans didn’t count as foreigners (in the Greek League), so the money went really crazy over there,” Andersen says. “I made, actually, more money my first couple of years then I would have as a backup in the NBA at the time. Yeah, I was disappointed (to not play in the NBA), but it was a good life. I had 12 great years and I don’t regret it at all.”

---

Andersen’s first meeting with his players was an event, to say the least,

“He walked into the room the first time and they all went OK, who’s that guy,” Thomas said. “He obviously played basketball somewhere.”

Randall Minogue had no idea who his new coach was.

A freshman at North Kingstown, Minogue knew one thing - Andersen was the tallest person he’d ever seen.

“I thought ‘Oh, what did I do now?” Minogue says. “What did I sign up for?”

None of Minogue’s players knew who he was. You can’t blame him - they were still learning to walk when Andersen was playing for URI. But they slowly learned about Andersen.

“My friend’s mom knew,” NK freshman Donald Maroney says. “My friend was a big basketball fan and he told me a lot about him and his parents told me a lot about him and how he was a good basketball player.”

If you’ve been big into college basketball in Rhode Island the last 20 years, you don’t forget a name like Michael Andersen. You remember him holding his own against the Atlantic 10’s premier players and, more often than not, someone at Andersen’s game will ask him if he’s that Michael Andersen - as if there’s many more synonymous 7-foot tall Dutch men in the state.

“I get that from parents, referees and other coaches,” Andersen says. “But all my players have no idea what I did, or where I’ve been.”

---

It’s hard not to notice Andersen’s size. Few seven-footers have made their way through the Rhode Island High School basketball scene and before leaving Barrington High School, Jim Dickinson was the Rhode Island Interscholastic League’s only seven-footer.

“We were down in the locker room and I heard them coming down. I went to open the locker room and I came out and looked, and looked up and saw him,” says Isaiah McDaniel, freshman coach at Cranston East. “It was a shock.”

“Height.” says CE shooting guard Hakeem Jean Pierre when asked what he thought of Andersen. “Mad height.”

Mad height takes some getting used to.

“I thought he was going to be scary,” Minogue says. “... Then I realized he’s mellow - just a laid-back guy.”

Someone that big, with that playing pedigree, should be the loud, angry coach.

Andersen is far from it. He sits the entire game, folding his body into and out of small chairs game in, game out. He doesn’t raise his voice in anger, only shouting when he wants his team to do focus on something - rebounding, setting screens, taking smarter shots.

“I learned from Skins,” Andersen says. “He was really calm, didn’t get too animated unless there was really something wrong. I try to do it the same way.”

It also helps he’s coaching freshmen, where everything is different. Players aren’t quite at the level Andersen’s been at, referees miss a fair share of calls and there are so many things you have to deal with. If there’s a first step in coaching, this is it.

“It’s frustrating at times, I’ll tell you that,” Andersen says. “(Expecting too much) was one of my biggest fears. I just worked out with pros four or five months ago, so I had to tone it down a little. I had to tone it down because they don’t know everything I talk about. I have to go back to basics.

“That’s what it is - keeping it basic and keeping it fun. Today we got to play everybody, some days we don’t get to play everybody but I try to get most of the guys in there.”

---

It’s not a stretch to call Andersen the most technically sound freshman coach the state’s ever had. All it takes is a peek at his scouting sheets to know Andersen knows a thing or two about basketball.

“He can tell you what the other teams are doing, what they are trying to do, what plays they’re running and that’s a huge asset,” Thomas said. “... He comes back with a nice scouting report and can answer the questions. It’s more than going to a game and watching it and that’s what we’re looking for.”

And as the season has gone on, and players and coach have grown accustomed to one another, Andersen has developed into a pretty good hands-on coach.

“We’ve taken to him really well,” Maroney said. “He focuses on everyone getting better and that’s why everyone gets along.”

“We’ve gotten better,” Minogue said. “From the first practice, he didn’t know us that well and now he knows us and we’re working on more stuff.”

“It’s 15,  13- and 14-year olds that think they’re the next (Boston Celtics’ guard Rajon) Rondo or something like that,” Andersen says. “It’s fun, they’re all good guys and I’ve having a good time doing that.”

The best part is the players have grasped the opportunity that presents them. While most teams have coaches who had an interest in basketball, maybe played a little low-level college ball, most likely stopped playing after their high school days, the Skippers are being taught by someone who’s played against some of the best in the world.

“It’s really a good opportunity because he knows a lot about what to do,” Maroney said. “He knows what to do and he’s a great coach.”

“You’re not going to find many freshmen coaches,” Thomas said, “with that kind of resume.”

---

Andersen is ready to settle down.

He and Ellen bought a house in Jamestown six years ago and along with 5-year old son Ryder and 3-year old daughter River Jane, are ready to call it home full-time. With Ellen being from Rhode Island, there was really no doubt it was going to happen eventually.

“She’s been traveling with me overseas,” Andersen said. “Now we want to stay.”

Coaching is something Andersen wanted to try and he’s searched for help on what and how to do it. He talks with Skinner’s former assistants at URI - Tim O’Shea, Ed Cooley, Bill Coen - all of whom currently coach Division I teams.

Thomas knows Andersen’s not going to be the NK freshman coach for long time, more of a testament to Andersen’s abilities than him wanted to pack things up and move on.

“I think ultimately he wants to be a college coach. That’s his ultimate goal and I think he’s got the experience to work his way up and I think it’s great to have a guy with that kind of experience,” Thomas says. “Some guys you find make good players and not coaches and sometimes it’s the other way around, too. He right now, is proving he’s really involved in coaching.”

Andersen says he wants to get in the college ranks and doesn’t see high school as the be all, end all to his coaching career. He doesn’t speculate on if he’ll be moving on next season, instead choosing to enjoy every minute of the one that’s going on right now.

“I have no plans. I’ll take it one year at a time to see how it goes,” Andersen said. “In coaching you never know what’s going to pop up and so far, so good.”