Remarks by David Anderson '89

I want to start with a tribute to Tim that my dad wrote as advice to his grandchildren. I don't think Tom realized it, but it's a poem. I titled it "Find a Friend."

Find a friend who loves what you love--who loves to play games and whether opponent or partner will laugh with you afterwards.
Find a friend who marries someone you and your spouse also love.
Find a friend who is curious and loves to read and listen and engage.
Find a friend who your sons or daughters would choose as coach and cherish the experience.
Find a friend who loves your children and you love theirs.
Find a friend to walk the beach.
Find a friend who loves a gin and tonic on the porch, a friend whose home is also your home.
Find a friend who will tell you when you are full of it.
Find a friend who can talk about death and the White Sox in the same conversation.
If you find such a friend, forty years will not seem long enough...

All right, I had to get those words out first while I still had some composure. Words. There's a line about words in one of my favorite books, I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak. The protagonist is a 19-year-old, having trouble finding his path, and gets help in some unusual places. At one point he is worried about how he will be remembered. He says, "I want words at my funeral. I want words at my funeral, but I guess that means you need life in your life."

He realized, for there to be words when it's over -- and as Coach always said, "It's over before you know it," there has to be life in your life.

Tim had life in his life, so there will be many, many words today.

No matter how many, I don't expect our words today to adequately convey how deeply we will miss him, how much we appreciated him, how much we loved him.

But we will try. We will try. As he would say, What the heck. What the heck.

Coach loved words. Loved discussion, debate, books. We are here in the gym because we wouldn't all fit in his office, or Cinema Seven, the Gizmo, his station wagon, or his living room, all the places where we talked to Tim.

Some of my first memories of Coach were right here in the gym, during Bucks basketball camp. The Sunday night lecture, sometimes Harley gave it, sometimes Tim. The Sunday night lecture was always "How to Win, How to Lose, and How to Love." Like most things around here, this wasn't your typical basketball fundamentals, Xs and Os type lecture. It was emotional. The topic may have been basketball, but the subject was life. You win with courage, character, humility. When you lose, you do so with dignity, respect, having given it your all. And most importantly, you learn to love. Love the game. Love your teammates, love your coach. This is a gym full of people who learned these things from Coach.
I told coach that since I was eight years old, it feels like we're living the Sunday night lecture.

How to win: We're at Monmouth my sophomore year -- a good memorial service, like a good Sunday night lecture, has to have a "beating Monmouth" story, right? -- We're at Monmouth, down 1 with 6 seconds to go. Coach calls timeout. We huddle up, hearts racing, ready for a play, and Coach is standing there with that big smile, just looking at us. He says, "Isn't this fun?" And he paused, still smiling, "Isn't this fun?" And we're like, yeah Coach, but what are we going to do? He's smiling. You know how he loved to just repeat something he found profound. So he says it again, "Isn't this fun?" And he looked at all of us, took it all in, broke the huddle by saying "Get the ball to Marco." We did and we ended up getting the win. But we learned that when the gym is full, the game's on the line, the important thing is make sure you're enjoying it. Coach enjoyed the wins.

How to lose: Coach taught me one of the best lessons of my life after a loss at Illinois College, a terrible night for me. Five fouls, two technicals, but after a long ride home from Jacksonville, Coach had it figured out. Most coaches would have wanted to leave me in Jacksonville, but he knew what I needed to hear. His words made me not just a better basketball player, but a better person. Recently, I have read many stories from other players, with their own version of these conversations. We all had them. He coached the games, but sometimes I think the games were just the way he figured out who we were and what we needed, what we could learn together.

How to Love: When I tried to pick the example of how to love, I kept thinking about Coach always saying, "I love ya, kid!" to his players. I am not going to use that as an example for learning how to love because the cynic in me thinks that's just what Coach said when you got an offensive rebound and stuck it back in. I think it needs to be said, to be true to his memory, that, there were times when, Coach was full of it. But we loved him anyway. And even if he was full of it at times, he did mean it when he said, "I love ya, kid."

But the story I'd like to share about how to love is the most recent. I was in Galesburg a few weeks ago. In his kitchen, Cammi was answering the phone, all of us calling, letting Tim know we were thinking about him. Somebody would call and Cammi would write the name down on a Post-it note and stick it on the door frame. The door frame was covered with names. Many I recognized, even more than I didn't. Each yellow Post-it note, only a name, but you knew there was a story about how to love represented by each one.

I also saw friends gathered in Coach's living room, the traditional mix of the Knox community, players, professors, neighbors, and family. I saw his friends boosting his spirits. I saw his daughter taking care of him. His grandson running around the room playing with Spiderman.

We sat in the living room and as Tim grew tired he put his head on Cathy's shoulders and she held him. Just held him.

I drove home wanting to be sad and cry. And I did. I wanted to be angry and swear. And I did. But by the time I got home, all I could tell my wife was that it was a lesson in love. Tim and Cathy were the lesson in love.

Whether it was winning, losing, or loving, we were all fortunate to be a part of it. There was a lot of life in his life.