on bleacher seats at the American Sports Centers gym in Anaheim, Calif., where the team trains. It’s mid-August. In a few days, he will leave for Poland and the FIVB World Championship. In a month, following the conclusion of the World Championship, he is scheduled to be on his way to Russia to play for VC Zenit-Kazan, a perennial champion in the top-tier Russian Volleyball Super League. “Most athletes understand what it’s like to be a fan because a lot of them were fans when they were younger,” he continues. “Most fans have good intentions, and a lot of our success comes from the fans, so you have to respect them and pay them the tribute that they pay you. I like promoting myself only in the fact that it promotes our sport. I think that’s great. I want to be an ambassador for my sport.” A line has to be drawn, though. Some of
the tweets he gets from young girls are, well – let’s just say they’re not appropriate. “I don’t know where these 14 and 15 year olds come up with these things,” he says. Post-match autograph sessions? All good,
as long as there are limits. “You want to sign autographs, you want
to take pictures, you want to do it for every- body, but if I do it for everybody, I’m there until 3 o’clock in the morning,” he says. “It’s tough when you have a match the next day, and you’ve got to get back to the hotel, get rehab, eat. Sometimes I’ll get Twitter mes- sages from fans saying, ‘You left. You said you were coming back.’ A lot of times, it’s not me that decides I can’t come back.” He adds: “It’s sometimes tough to be a
normal person.”
staying on during the FIVB World Grand Champions Cup last November. “I walked out of my room, and she saw
me and just started running toward me,” Anderson says. “I didn’t have the key to my room, and my door closed, so I ran to Paul Lotman’s room and latched the door really quick. And she was standing there knocking on the door for a good 35 minutes. Finally, we called down to security and said, ‘You’ve got to get this girl out of here.’” Later, on a different floor, the team was
eating dinner and the girl showed up again. This time, she was ushered out by the trainer. “It’s kind of funny to look back at it,
but it can be kind of scary, too, because you don’t know what some fans truly want,” he says. He is telling this story while sitting
of 12-3, has won two USAV Male Indoor Player of the Year awards (2012 and 2013) and an NCAA Division 1 championship (in 2008, his junior year at Penn State). He has been an AVCA co-Player of the Year (2008) and the Most Outstanding Player at an NCAA championship tournament (also 2008). His rise began at Penn State – literally.
A
Nittany Lions coach Mark Pavlik likes to joke that he coached him to two extra inches in height; Anderson was 6-7 as a freshman in 2006 and 6-9 by his junior year, the year he led Penn State to its second men’s national championship. By then, the international volleyball
world had noticed, so he got an offer from a pro team in Korea – a great offer: $250,000 for one season. And that led to him becoming one of the few U.S. volleyball athletes to turn
nderson proved long ago that he is not normal. He is 6-9. He has a jump touch
pro before his eligibility was up. It’s reasonable to think that Anderson’s
early exit cost Pavlik and Penn State a great chance at a back-to-back championship, but Pavlik is a good sport about it. “I read a quote recently from (college
basketball coach) John Calipari about Der- rick Rose (when Rose was deciding between staying at Memphis or turning pro). He said to Rose, ‘If you want to do the right thing for your family, go to the pros. If you want to do the right thing for my family, stay here.’ With (the limited) scholarships that exist in men’s volleyball, how can you tell a kid, ‘I want you to stay here.’? And Matt and I have had discussions about him coming back after his playing days are over and finishing his degree, so this isn’t somebody who walked away saying, ‘Education is not important.’” Explaining what led to the decision, An-
derson says: “I wasn’t money-hungry. After three years at school, I was $79,000 in debt, so I would have had to take another loan for another full year of school and then possibly miss the opportunity to play professionally. I was getting a 50-percent scholarship, but I was an out-of-state student, so I was paying (the equivalent) of a little over full tuition for an in-state student.
MATT ANDERSON QUICK FACTS Hometown: West Seneca, N.Y. College: Penn State Position: Opposite and outside hitter Height: 6-9
Tattoo for Tristin: One of Matt’s six tattoos is an image on his wrist of a blue puzzle with the name of his nephew, Tristin, who has autism. Matt says it’s a way to support his nephew and other kids with autism and raise awareness about the developmental disorder. Volleyball pedigree: His grandfather and uncles played on the beach in Buffalo, N.Y., and two of his sisters, Joelle and Amy, both played in college.
Pro club experience overseas: Starting in 2008, Matt has played two years in Korea, two years in Italy and two years in Russia. He will return to Russia this year for a third season.
On being the youngest of five siblings: “Great fun. I never got in trouble for anything. Even if I did something wrong, it was my siblings’ fault for allowing me to do it. When you’re not used to getting yelled at as a kid, it’s a little weird when a coach gets on you.”
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