It's one thing to be blessed with jumping ability. It's entirely something else to build on and improve that gift the way
Zack Anderson has at the University of South Dakota.
The Parker native, who joins fellow Coyotes
Chris Nilsen (pole vault),
Helen Falda (pole vault) and
Lara Boman (weight throw) at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Birmingham, Alabama, this week, has always had the hops to stay up in the air for a while. Though he is not the level of basketball player that he is a track athlete, the rims at Parker High School got a battering during his time playing for the Pheasants.
His first dunk ever was executed in the Parker gym during a casual shooting session. He was in ninth grade and was 5 feet, six inches tall at the time and had no idea of what was going to happen when he jumped up there toward the rim with a basketball in his hands.
"The varsity guys were starting to dunk basketballs," he said. "One day I was watching the seniors trying to do it and somebody walked up to me – I think it was my brother – and asked if I'd ever tried to dunk. I said no, I hadn't. Then I just ran up there and dunked it easy."
It must have been quite a scene. While Anderson was regarded as an athletic kid in a small town full of sports-oriented teenagers, dunking when you're five-and-a-half feet tall is something else entirely.
"It was like 'Oh, well I guess there is something different in me,'" Anderson said. "My brother was a very good basketball player and I'd always tag along. He didn't want to tell me 'Good job,' or anything after the dunk because he was two years older than me."
It led to more than 60 dunks in actual games, though as Anderson continued on he began to understand he was a better high jumper than he was a basketball player. His high school career was highlighted by a 7-foot jump that made him just the sixth high school athlete to clear that height and the first to do it in 24 years. He was also a three-time Class B state titleist who also won a triple jump and long jump title before moving onto USD.
Anderson's recruitment was not an example of the Coyote track program having to work incredibly hard to land a prize athlete. In fact, he'd coveted the opportunity to play sports for the Coyotes since he was in elementary school.
"I came here for basketball camps and it was like 'I'm going to play basketball at USD. This is going to be the life,'" Anderson said. "Then you grow up and you figure out the basketball players here are pretty good. I was not quite in that bracket. But then I got good at track and came back and talked to
Lucky Huber."
Coyote track coach Huber told him to visit another school before he made his decision. Anderson did this and came back armed with even more conviction that USD was the place for him.
The process since then has been to create higher peaks and more of them while at the same time raising the valleys. That is, to be at close to your best more often. To that end, the best high jumper in USD history has made significant progress.
"He was talented in high school but to say he was inconsistent would almost be flattering," Huber said. "He was so up and down. Once we were able to build on that consistency, he discovered he was able to take some shots at some monster bars. I mean making an attempt at 7-5 is phenomenal. That's a mark four years ago that he never even thought of."
He's cleared seven feet in six of seven meets during the indoor season and has improved his personal best from a year ago by more than three inches, moving from an indoor PR of 7-0.5 to 7-3.75 this winter.
He also broke the Summit League meet record with a jump of 7-2.25 two weeks ago, coming tantalizingly close to clearing 7-5 at the same meet.
This did not come by accident. In a sport where the higher you go, the slower the climb, Anderson has significantly improved, delivering consistency while at the same time moving the target upward.
"Mentally it's been a complete turnaround for me," Anderson said. "My freshman year, I would hit 6-10 and be super happy and then the next week I'd try to jump the same height but it was too much. I'd go 6-5 or something like that. I never really understood. It would be like 'Well, I didn't eat right three days before or I didn't have enough sleep.' But at the end of the day it's all mental."
The bar tells you, Anderson said, exactly where you're at. It's not always going to be charitable in assessing your efforts, but you're never going to suffer from a lack of feedback about how you're doing.
"It's about having confidence in yourself," he said. "It's not like 'Oh, I can do this,' it's having actual factual reasons to be confident: 'I really worked hard the last year, I deserve this and I'm going to go make it happen for myself.' That's instead of just hoping it will happen."
It would be easy to let a "Me vs. bar" mentality come at the expense of enjoying the company of teammates. In Anderson's case, that's not only not true, it's not even close to being true. The junior is a conspicuously engaging personality who seeks out opportunities to be part of the team.
He's into duck hunting, for instance, as are several of his jumping peers.
"We wake up early," Anderson said. "It's kind of a high-jumper thing. My roommate
Nick Johnson is a pole vaulter, he goes with us. Then there is
Blake Vande Hoef,
Travis Larson,
Jack Durst – we all just go sit in the field."
As any good hunter will tell you, the fellowship of such excursions is a bigger deal than the ducks brought back from the bog. For Anderson, that part of being a good teammate comes naturally – as naturally as going over a 7-foot bar. To hear his coach tell it, this is a special student-athlete who would be regarded as such even if he wasn't setting school and league records.
"He's fun to work with, the team loves him, they love being around him," Huber said. "There's no doubt that's why they're part of this jump group. Even when they're competing against him, they have that experience with him. It's not about him, it's about other people, it's about having fun. That's where I think his personality and the high jump go together. It's not me vs. you, it's us vs. the bar."
South Dakota track and field competes at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships on Friday and Saturday. Nilsen will be the only Coyote in action on Friday, vaulting at 5:30 p.m. Anderson kicks off the action on Saturday at 1 p.m. in the high jump. Falda vaults at 4 p.m. Saturday and Boman competes in the weight throw at 4:30 p.m. Saturday.
