Todd F. Anderson was a hard-working optimist. When he lost a foot in a motorcycle accident, he switched his career direction to prosthetics and began helping disabled young people to thrive.
He also became a top amputee athlete and set a world record in the 200-meter run in Sweden in 1986, five years after he lost his right foot, his wife said. He is in the National Wheelchair Softball Association Hall of Fame and won national tourney MVP honors eight years as a third baseman for the St. Paul Rolling Thunder.
"He hit a lot of home runs," said his daughter, Erin.
Anderson, 50, died of a heart attack while biking with his dog in Roseville on Aug. 18, said his wife, Diane Anderson.
After his motorcycle accident along the Gunflint Trail in 1981, Anderson didn't let his disability slow him down, his wife said. He returned to college in La Crosse, Wis., as planned, including living in a third-floor apartment with some pals.
"He had them time him on how long it took to get up the steps on his crutches. It was a challenge," his wife said. "For him it was, 'Let's make the best we can out of it.'"
He earned a recreation administration degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1982 and began working in an adaptive recreation parks program in St. Paul while taking courses in prosthesis work at Century College in White Bear Lake, his wife said. "He decided he could learn to make his own legs and went back to school for that," she said. "He was a very positive, optimistic man. He found strengths in almost everybody."
Anderson coached his two children's baseball and basketball teams, and served on Roseville's Parks and Recreation Commission. He recently was secretary-treasurer of the American Board for Certification in Orthotics and Prosthetics, and had been president of the Minnesota chapter of the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists.
