Images of Kirk Anderson are easy to conjure. He was a tall, skinny blonde who could rise up over defenders and shoot a perfectly sweet jump shot that was mechanically perfect every time. And the expression on his face never changed. Whether the long distance gunner was hitting or missing five shots in a row, his emotion was always the same. The eyes stayed focused and it seemed as if he was oblivious to what was going on around him.
Kirk Anderson was a joy to watch. He was a scoring machine who never saw a shot he didn’t think he could make. When he was guarded closely he put the ball on the floor and roared to the basket. If that didn’t work, he just took a step back to give him some room and shot from there. It didn’t matter where the three point line was located, he was always in range.
After coming to Augustana out of Phoenix, Arizona, Anderson was mostly a junior varsity player during his freshman season. A coaching change brought Steve Yount into the head coaching position heading into Anderson’s sophomore season of 1990-91 and his career blossomed after that. Yount remembers walking into the Carver gym in the spring of 1990 after he got the job and peering over the balcony. “I saw this skinny blonde kid all by himself making shot after shot,” said Yount. “Then he missed one and as the ball bounced on the floor he ran and grabbed it and in one motion jumped up and dunked it with no effort. I immediately had to find out who that was.”
It didn’t take long for Yount to figure out who that “skinny, blonde kid” was and soon opponents throughout the CCIW knew who he was as well. During his sophomore season he played mostly off the bench but still managed to score 224 points. He was a big part of a remarkable turnaround as the Vikings went 19-7 overall and 13-3 in the league after winning a total of just seven games in 1989-90.
During his junior year he averaged 21.6 points per game and was a first team all-conference selection and was a third team NCAA Division III All-America selection by Basketball Gazette. That set the stage for a spectacular senior season.
He positively lit up the scoreboard as he scored a school record 734 points, averaging 24.5 per game. It was a season-long scoring barrage that long-time Viking observers still marvel at.
Augustana had not won a CCIW title since 1982 and had not been in the NCAA playoffs since 1983. That all changed during that magical campaign of 1992-93. With Anderson as the ringleader, the Vikings won the CCIW title with a 12-2 mark and finished the regular season with a 19-6 overall record. In the NCAA Division III tournament Anderson put on a clinic, scoring 166 points in six games as Augustana advanced all the way to the title game before losing to Ohio Northern by a score of 71-68. Through it all, the shoulders that the Blue & Gold rode belonged to “that skinny blonde kid”. He started with a 27 point outing in a 79-66 home win over DePauw on Thursday, March 4. Two nights later, in Beloit, Wisconsin, he scored 21 as the Vikings absolutely took apart a good Buccaneer squad by a score of 92-66. In the regional at Platteville, Wisconsin on March 12 and 13 he hit for 28 in an 87-84 victory over LaVerne. That set up a battle against number one ranked Wisconsin-Platteville, the defending national champion on the Pioneers' home floor.
How good was Anderson that night? In any other regional championship game, the 31 point, 12 rebound effort of starting center Aben Cooper would have demanded the headlines. On this night, it was in the third paragraph thanks to the 41 point hurt that Anderson put on Platteville. He made 14 of 26 shots, 12 of 19 from three point range as Augustana won 100-86 to secure a spot in the Final Four.
He was not done, however, as he scored 29 points in an 83-81 semi-final victory over Rowan and then tallied 20 in the loss to Ohio Northern. In six playoff games, five of them on the road, he scored 166 points for an average of 27.7 per contest. He also grabbed 24 rebounds and had 15 assists. He made 35 of 73 three point field goals.
When he graduated he owned a total of 10 Augustana school records and two NCAA marks. He was a first team all-conference performer in 1992-93 and was a first team NCAA Division III All-American. He also was the CCIW “Player of the Year” and was the Most Outstanding Player at both the Midwest Regional and the Final Four.
Currently, Kirk is the operations controller of Philadelphia Cream Cheese with Kraft Foods. He graduated from Augustana in 1993 with a degree in accounting (finance) and got his CPA in 1997. He picked up his Master’s degree from DePaul University in 2002. Kirk and his wife Cathy, also an Augustana graduate, live in Waunakee, Wisconsin and have three daughters: Megan (eight), Hannah (six) and Lauren (four).
