Anderson to play old WPIAL foes as Navy opens with Pitt
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
When the Brooklyn Nets arrived in Annapolis, Md., last month for their training camp at the U.S. Naval Academy, forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson was approached by the captain of the Navy men’s basketball team. The player, Navy’s top scorer the past two seasons, introduced himself as Shawn Anderson, from New Castle. Hollis-Jefferson smiled. He knew New Castle.
“You really think y’all boys could have beat us?” Hollis-Jefferson asked.
Anderson laughed and replied, “Yeah.” In 2013, his senior year at New Castle High School, the Red Hurricanes’ dream of an undefeated season died with a 6763 loss to Lower Merion in the PIAA Class AAAA state semifinal. Awaiting Lower Merion in the championship game was two-time defending champion Chester, led by Hollis-Jefferson, a consensus five-star recruit.
“Weren’t y’all undersized?” Hollis-Jefferson asked Anderson.
“We were,” Anderson said, “but there was something about that team.”
Even now, four years later and 300 miles from New Castle, Anderson can’t help but reminisce about his Red Hurricane days. Playing for coach Ralph Blundo, Anderson paired with Malik Hooker, now a safety for the Indianapolis Colts, to secure back-toback WPIAL basketball titles. Both times, in 2012 and 2013, they defeated rival Hampton in the league final.
So imagine Anderson’s intrigue this spring when he discovered who led off Navy’s 2017-18 schedule. The news came via a text message from a Navy assistant coach: The Midshipmen would open Anderson’s senior season Nov. 10 by hosting Pitt in the Veterans Classic. For Anderson, it meant one last tilt against Pitt’s Ryan Luther, his highschool friend and Hampton rival. Anderson relayed the message to his father, Shawn Sr., and said, “Here we go again!”
"What more could I ask for than to open up my last first college game against Ryan Luther?” Anderson said in a phone interview last week.
“It’s cool because it’s Pitt, but this goes back to our New Castle and Hampton days. This is going to be a cool experience. …
“What more could you ask for as a hometown guy? I didn’t have the opportunity to go [to Pitt], but I’m at another program, we’re doing well, starting to build up to potentially bringing a championship here, and we’re opening up against a team I’ve watched since I was a little kid. It should be a good time.”
Anderson, named to the five-player preseason AllPatriot League team earlier this month, said he has fielded many ticket requests the past few weeks, and he expects a large New Castle contingent at Alumni Hall when Pitt comes to the academy. Navy has another WPIAL product on the roster — sophomore guard Matt Cullen, a Latrobe graduate.
Anderson was a Pitt fan growing up and dreamed of playing Division I basketball. Not there, necessarily, but anywhere. Navy wasn’t on his radar until they began recruiting him. Anderson went on a campus visit, and thankfully, he said, his father “had the foresight that 17-year-old Shawn Anderson, Jr., didn’t have.” Shawn Sr. encouraged his son to seriously consider Navy.
Back in New Castle, Anderson said, peoples’ eyes widened when they heard he had an offer to attend the U.S. Naval Academy. Anderson said the reactions helped him recognize the prestige of the place. After a year at the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, R.I., Anderson relocated to Annapolis and started working toward a degree in quantitative economics. He will graduate next spring and intends to serve on a ship somewhere as a Surface Warfare Officer.
Still, New Castle remains close to Anderson’s heart and mind. Three of his four siblings live there, as does his father. His mother, Angelique, lives nearby, over the Ohio border.
“You can never replace home,” Anderson said. “You can’t replace those friendships, those memories.”
Anderson and New Castle classmate Mike Geramita started a nonprofit organization called “Forever Red Hurricanes” to benefit the local community. Anderson currently is planning their fifth annual coat drive. Another initiative is a “Transitioning to Success” program where college students mentor middle schoolers, showing show them their options for the future. The Forever Red Hurricanes founders hope to soon start funding a few college scholarships each year.
Whenever Anderson returns home, he said, one of his first destinations is the gym at New Castle High School. He flips on the lights, scans the familiar surroundings and picks up a ball.
“I go into the field house by myself and just shoot,” Anderson said. “I’ll never be able to replace that. I’ll never put on that uniform again, with the crowd there, but whether you think New Castle is a good place or a bad place, that’s home. That’s family. That’s love.”