Catching up with Jim Anderson

[Bengals1181]

The other day Marvin Lewis discussed a question about stress and overwork among coaches in light of the health incidents with Houston head coach Gary Kubiak and Denver’s John Fox. In explaining why coaches put in so many long hours and push the limits of themselves through the rigors of the season he mentioned former Bengals running backs coach Jim Anderson.

Anderson spent 29 years logging long hours inside Bengals offices before retiring last year. Since leaving, he’s spent a few days watching practice and reconnecting with coaches and players. However, he’s spent most days out of the country enjoying the fruits of that labor in China, Thailand, Hong Kong, Arizona and Hawaii.

He leaves for 20 days in Australia on Dec. 5. And there’s a laundry list of vacations following that one.

Lewis pointed out all this was afforded Anderson from a life spent rarely leaving the offices and working with the same intensity as the staff pushes themselves through now.

“You do this job for the time period that you do it so that hopefully you can enjoy a productive life after you’re finished,” Lewis said. “That you enjoy this. That’s what it’s for. A great example of that is Jim Anderson. I don’t know how many days he’s been in the state of Ohio since he retired this year, and that’s great. He worked all of that time as a coach for so doggone long in order to realize that and be able to reap the benefit of that now and enjoy his life.”

Knowing I was writing about this concept for today’s paper — you can read the entire piece here — I thought trying to catch up with JA would be an interesting angle. Of course, with all the traveling he’s doing I figured I’d be lucky if he was even in the country. Then, unbelievably walking right by the media work room Thursday afternoon, there he was. Talk about your good luck.

Anderson was fantastic talking about his view now in retrospect looking back at how hard he worked and where it left him now. I wanted to work it into the story, but there just wasn’t enough room.

Hey, that’s what the blog is for.

He recalled years of resting five hours, calling plays in your sleep and pushing the limits of energy. Returning back to speak with coaches still grinding, even in retrospect he wouldn’t advise them to take their jobs any easier than he did.

“You just have to do your job,” Anderson said with a smile that rarely leaves his face these days. “When you are doing it you don’t think about it as stress, you are just doing what you love to do. When you get up and you can coach football, you are lucky-lucky.”

Anderson said he feels like a weight had been lifted off him when he made the decision to move on. “Like I grew up,” he said.

Football feels like all that matters to these coaches when they are in it. And why not? They love what they do and are as driven to succeed as anyone in any profession. For Anderson, it’s like he’s been let free.

“Everything that I do now is a first,” he said. “First time I’ve been back home since 1966. That’s because of what we do. You are playing or you are coaching, you don’t have that opportunity to do it.”

Looking back, he wouldn’t have changed a thing. And he understands why coaches push themselves as hard as they do.

“You do what you have to do,” he said. “You don’t think about the time. It’s going to take an extended period of time. It’s not a 9 to 5 job.  When you think about every day I came to work I didn’t say, ‘Damn I got to go to work.’ I don’t think there’s a football coach alive that says that because they love what they do.”

 

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/bengals/2013/11/08/walkthrough-stress-perspective-from-abroad/

[HairOnFire]

Fist. Fucking. Pump.

 

The sale of my business closed on October 2nd....my last official day as a working stiff.

 

Immediately made plans to come home and share Christmas with the extended family for the first time in 32 years.

 

I get it.