Skates for sneakers
Anastos goes from rink to court for BC
It was late last spring, close to graduation, and Andie Anastos wasn’t sure what was next. After four years on the Boston College women’s hockey team, two as a captain, she was weighing her post-graduation options.
Then, Patrice Bouzan, her academic adviser, came to her with an idea: “She was like, ‘You should totally just try to do basketball next year,’ ” Anastos recalled.
It seemed crazy. Anastos grew up playing basketball in Michigan before she evolved as a high-level hockey recruit. It had been years since she played hoops competitively.
After exhausting all four years of her hockey eligibility, Anastos had the option to play basketball at BC for one season as a grad student. She just wasn’t sure.
“I was like, ‘No, there’s no way. Like, I’m not gonna do that,’ ” Anastos said. “I was really hesitant.”
She needed some needling, and got some help. Hockey coach Katie Crowley caught wind of the idea and talked to the basketball staff. With Crowley’s support, Anastos gave it a shot.
“I had two, three weeks left of school and I was like, ‘Why not?’ ” Anastos said. “It’s not going to hurt just to talk to them.”
Said Crowley: “I think she just needed someone to kind of say, ‘Yeah, I’ll support you in that, I have no problem supporting you in that,’ and we knew how valuable she was to any team.”
On the other side, basketball coach Erik Johnson received an email from Anastos, and he was intrigued. Johnson could use another player on his roster, and thought she could be an important piece to the culture he’s been building. So he went to meet with the women’s hockey staff to learn more about her.
“They fell over themselves with praise for Andie,” Johnson said. “They said, ‘Look, we’re losing Olympians, we’ll get new talented players. We don’t know what we’re going to do without Andie’s leadership, without Andie’s character.’ ”
Johnson then met with Anastos, and he was sold on her leadership qualities. Then came basketball.
It was finals week, and it was past the point where Johnson could work with his team. So he called on some alums to help him organize a tryout for Anastos. She was rusty, after Johnson put her through an intense workout to see what she could handle.
“It was absolutely exhausting,” Anastos said.
However, Johnson came away impressed, and he got a look at the intangibles Anastos brought that he knew could help his team.
“What you saw was that look,” Johnson said. “When she got tired, her shoulders went back. I knew she was gassed. But she never backed down, and our whole staff was sitting there saying, ‘Yup, now we know what the hockey staff means.’ ”
Johnson saw more than enough. Anastos was on the team. And it has been almost better than expected.
At first, Anastos said she felt “really awkward.” The only player she knew was senior Martina Mosetti, but soon that changed. During a seven-week summer session together, she bonded with her new teammates. And when they returned in the fall, they voted her a team captain.
“She hadn’t even been on the team,” Johnson said. “But they saw already just from summer school how she carried herself. She was able to bring some of that championship culture from our women’s hockey team into our locker room.”
Establishing herself on the basketball team so quickly was impressive.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Crowley said. “Because she’s one of those people that does everything the right way, and she’s a player who works her tail off and works hard all the time. She’s someone you certainly want your team to follow.”
It’s been a process, but Anastos should expect to see quality playing time this season. Though there were a lot of air balls and bricks at the beginning — “I think the balls are bouncier than when I used to play,” she joked — her shot and game are coming along.
She couldn’t be happier to end her college athletics career like this.
“It’s kind of poetic now that I think about it, doing something for this long, doing it all growing up, and I thought I was done playing basketball 100 percent,” Anastos said. “Getting back into it, I forgot how much fun it is to play, and different obviously, but I am having fun.”