Sometimes, all it takes is a steady beat to take Mike Anderson back. A marching band may take the field before the game or at halftime. Music fills the air. And Anderson's belly fills with the boom-boom-boom of the drum section, and his heart with the rat-a-tat-tat.
"I'm planning on getting a drum set," Anderson, a Broncos running back, said somewhat wistfully. "It's a lot of noise, a lot of ruckus. I don't think my family will put up with that. But the place we're moving to, I'm going to have my own set and get back to playing."
There are other reminders, too, of the life he used to lead, the part without football and fame but still filled with adrenaline and satisfaction.
PHOTO: AFP
On the shelf of his locker is a black trucker-style cap with a mesh back and a patch on the front. A glance takes him back to boot camp, to Camp Pendleton, to nighttime patrols in Somalia. "Once a Marine, always a Marine," the patch reads.
Once a reluctant football player, now the unlikeliest of stars, Anderson has further reminders everywhere. The lockers near his once belonged to other running backs who have come and gone. He outlasted them all. Now the lockers belong to those who hoped to take his job.
Not yet. Anderson was late getting here. He is in no hurry to leave.
"I'm dreaming," Anderson said. "Don't wake me up yet."
His story is out of the ordinary in several ways, but in no way more than this: He never envisioned a football career. He never imagined a place as impossible as here.
Football dreamers do not play drums in the high school marching band. They do not join the Marines. They do not play organized football in Pop Warner, then give the game up until they are 21. They do not go from flag football on a military base to rookie of the year in the NFL. They do not gain 1,487 yards as rookie running backs, then 1,321 over the next three seasons, then sit out a year with an injury and emerge, at 32, with the expectations of carrying a team to a championship.
Anderson and his family could not afford college. So he joined the Marines, signing up for four years. At worst, he would earn money for college. At best, he would forge a military career.
He played some flag football. Friends saw the way he ran and said he should join them on one of the full-contact teams at Camp Pendleton, near San Diego.
Two years later, Anderson had a ticket to a college education. He was at Mount San Jacinto Community College in California, a junior-college powerhouse, on his way to becoming a two-time all-American. He was signed by Utah and became a two-time all-conference player.
The Broncos, in 2000, drafted him in the sixth round.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB