TRURO, Iowa – The Beelers – Dennis and Roxanne – couldn’t sleep. That Anderson kid just kept playing, pounding a basketball into the driveway late into the evening like a drumbeat for this tiny Iowa town.
“I’m sitting there every night, basketballs bouncing on the street until midnight,” said Dennis Beeler, longtime Truro resident and admirer of that one-time neighbor, Tobin Anderson. “I looked at my wife and said, ‘Is that normal?’ “
It is if your dad is a legendary coaching figure in this town of 500 hearty souls. It is if dad taught you the Bobby Knight’s motion offense like it was a textbook to be memorized. It is if they still remember you, decades later now that Anderson has hit the big time.
Part of Tobin Anderson’s story is big-picture familiar. Small-town basketball star, dad was the high school coach, son moved on to play and coach in college. The other part grabbed the nation by the throat last spring and made it pay attention.
Seven months have passed now since Anderson coached Fairleigh Dickinson to a shocking first-round upset of No. 1 seed Purdue in the NCAA Tournament. It was the second time in history a No. 16 seed had beaten a No. 1. For a moment in time, Anderson and the Knights were celebrities. It put Truro on the map. That is, if you had a very detailed map.
“We consider him our son,” Roxanne Beeler said the day after the Purdue upset. “He’s an awesome, awesome person. After he moved and went to college, we could sleep. I cried last night.”
Anderson is Iona’s coach now. No one can deny him parlaying that monster win into something better. Back in March locker room cameras revealed all, a basketball drumbeat of a different kind. Anderson’s Fairleigh Dickinson, a refreshing mid-major, punching another giant in the schnoz.
Anderson’s personality gushed. NBC’s Today show called. Thousands of texts bombarded the coach’s phone. Anderson and his players did…
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