University of Minnesota Athletics
John Anderson - M Club Hall of Fame
John Anderson
Baseball Coach, 1982
HOF Class of 2002
John Anderson came to the University of Minnesota in 1973 from Nashwauk-Keewatin High School, hoping to catch on as a pitcher for baseball coach Dick Siebert.
An arm injury ended his playing career, but Anderson continued his association with the team as a student coach. So well liked and respected was he that the players voted him the 1977 team MVP – quite an honor on a team that featured future Hall of Famer Paul Molitor and finished sixth at the College World Series!
In 1978, Anderson became a graduate assistant to the team. When Coach Siebert died that year and George Thomas was made his replacement, Anderson became assistant coach. When Thomas resigned three years later, Anderson became head coach, at 26 the youngest in Big Ten history.
For 43 years, Anderson continued to uphold the lofty standards of the Golden Gopher baseball program. To date, Anderson's 1,390 career victories are the most in the history of the Big Ten Conference. Upon his retirement, Anderson was also the longest-tenured coach at the University of Minnesota at 45 years.Anderson guided the Gophers to 11 regular season Big Ten titles and a conference-best ten Big Ten Tournament titles. His regular season championships came in 1983, '84, '86, '87, 2000, '02, '03, '04, '10, '16, and '18 and his tournament championships in 1982, '85, '88, '92, '93, '98, 2001, `04, '10, and '18. (The first four regular season titles were divisional.)
Under Anderson, Minnesota appeared 19 times in the NCAA postseason. The first was during Anderson's inaugural season, 1982, and the most recent ended with the program's first appearance in an NCAA Super Regional in 2018.
Anderson was inducted into four different organizations' halls of fame: the American Baseball Coaches Association (2008), the University of Minnesota "M" Club (2002), the Minnesota High School Baseball Coaches Association (2013) and Hibbing Community College.
Anderson, affectionately known as "14" in the baseball community, had his Gopher number retired at the end of his Minnesota tenure. After spending 49 years with the program as both a player, assistant coach and manager, Anderson's "14" became the seventh retired number in Gopher baseball history, joining Paul Giel (No. 34), Dick Siebert (No. 24), Dave Winfield (No. 31), Paul Molitor (No. 11), David Chelesnik (No. 26) and Herb "Ike" Isakson (No. 5).