Jim Souhan: Something old and new works for Anderson

Dick Siebert and Rick Aberman probably wouldn't have liked each other. Siebert, the legendary Gophers baseball coach, would rather have seen a player thrown out at third with two outs than hire someone like Aberman, a sports psychotherapist, to tell him to stop screaming in the dugout.

Somehow, though, when John Anderson achieved his 1,000th career victory as Gophers coach Thursday, he bridged the gap between old-school Siebert and new-age Aberman, paying homage to the mentor who coaxed him into coaching and the ally who kept him from leaving.

"I'll be honest with you, in the early to mid-'90s I was thinking about quitting," Anderson said. "I was getting frustrated. We weren't getting any better. We couldn't take that next step. I thought, 'Maybe somebody else should do this. Maybe I'm not good enough.'

"By fate, about that time Doug Woog introduced me to Rick."

Anderson was speaking earlier this week, at Siebert Field. He stood in front of a dugout, looking relaxed, joking about the hairpin turn his coaching philosophies took. His players and assistant coaches ran the practice, which took on the relaxed feel of an intramural softball game.

"Rick and I met over lunch at Stub & Herb's, and I asked Doug if he thought I was crazy," Anderson said. "Do I really need help this bad?

"Then, a couple of years later, we won a conference championship. The players got rings with their numbers on them. I gave Rick one with a question mark where the number should be, because he was the guy I went to with all my questions. His tag in our program is 'Head head coach.' "

He grew up loving baseball and hockey, and played on the checking lines for a Hibbing Community College team that finished second in the nation.

Siebert conducted summer clinics near Anderson's hometown, Hibbing, and Anderson wound up walking on as a longshot pitcher. Mostly, he played for the Gophers JV -- known as the "Chipmunks" -- but he did pitch one prolonged inning for a worn-out varsity. A lack of stuff and a torn labrum led to a new role: team manager.

When he left the U to work in a taconite plant on the Iron Range, Siebert called, asking him to come back and help with the program.

Anderson's parents questioned why he would leave a job that could pay $20,000 for one that might pay $3,000 -- if he taught phys-ed and worked on the grounds crew -- but Siebert's pull was strong. "My parents thought I was crazy," Anderson said. "They said, 'What is it about this baseball thing?'"

After Siebert died, Anderson became George Thomas' part-time assistant. Of course, Thomas was a part-time employee, too.

"When he called," Anderson said, "I thought I had a bad connection. I think those people all saw more of me than I saw in myself."

The result of that foresight: The Gophers baseball team, the oldest intercollegiate sport on campus, has employed just three coaches in 62 years, and the hockey-loving kid from the Iron Range who thought about quitting or leaving the program is 1,001-641-3.

Siebert saw intelligence and passion in Anderson. Aberman saw a tortured baseball soul. Together, if separately, Siebert and Aberman molded Anderson into what he is today -- a coach who blends Siebert's love of fundamentals and details with Aberman's nouveau pitch.

Anderson doesn't scream anymore, not since a veteran player told him he was scaring the kids on the team. He doesn't appoint captains, telling his players, "You're all leaders, because your actions are observable by others."

He doesn't set curfews, placing the responsibility on the athletes to police themselves. He lets the players choose drills and work with each other some days, wanting them to "take ownership" of the team.

The result has been what Anderson describes as "more consistent success," a renewed enthusiasm for coaching, a willingness to stay in Minnesota when more lucrative jobs beckoned, and the stamina to endure the challenges facing an underfunded team in a bad stadium on a northern campus.

Anderson said he fought off thoughts of quitting or leaving because he feared the school might consider eliminating baseball if he left. If Siebert was the most influential baseball man in his life, Aberman was his baseball buoy.

"Rick really was the teacher, and I was the student, and I didn't like it at times," Anderson said. "It was really hard. As a coach, you don't want anybody to think you have a weakness or a flaw, or that you don't have all the answers."

Siebert, whose picture still hangs in Anderson's office, would have liked the answer to this question: How many games did that eager kid from the Iron Range win for the Gophers?

"I think he would have been proud," Anderson said. "That's what means the most to me."