MARKED MAN: Matt Anderson has been shouldering a lot of responsibility since his days at Penn State University. (Photo: FIVB)
should I get?’ Or, ‘I want to put stairs on my deck; should I use treated wood?’” Anderson has six tattoos. One them, the
first one he got, honors his father. It’s on his ribcage – an image with Michael’s initials and his birth date. But the best reminders for Matt are the
memories. “You look back, and you don’t neces-
sarily become sad about it. You’re almost happy because you’re still able to enjoy those moments after the fact. Whether it’s tailgating at a (Buffalo) Bills game or sitting and watching a movie and quoting every line. ‘Young Frankenstein,’ ‘Princess Bride,’ ‘Cad- dyshack.’ There are movies that everybody in my family can quote – dad, aunts, uncles, sisters. Everybody.”
I
f you’re defining Anderson as a volleyball player in one word, it would probably be
this: terminator. “He’s taken so many great swings for
us,” Fuerbringer says. “Tato [Taylor Sander] was the Most Outstanding Player at World League [this summer], but Matt took most of the tough swings. Matty opened it up for Tato a lot.”
That’s a big part of why Anderson, who
had established himself before this year as one of the world’s best outside hitters, is now mostly playing opposite. With a gun like Sander on the left, moving Anderson to the right gives the U.S. a formidable, double-bar- rel attack. “Last year, Matt was a guy who was go-
ing to get every single ball when it mattered,” Speraw says. “Now, the combination of Matt on one side and Taylor on the other has really changed the whole offensive dynamic for our entire group.” As position switches go, Speraw says,
going from left to right is pretty significant. Asked if he misses hitting the bic, one of his go-to sets at outside hitter, Anderson says: “I miss everything about the left. At the
end of the pro season this year in Russia, I just felt so confident in being able to lift the team and lead the team because I didn’t really have to think about what I was doing. I trusted myself to make the right move, and there’s something liberating about that. “But you need to [change things up]
every now and then. When you get content with how you’re playing, that’s when you start to lose it.”
P
laying volleyball for a living when you love playing volleyball is not a bad way
of life. But there are tradeoffs. That’s especially true for a guy like An-
derson, who is extremely close to his family and enjoys hanging out with them but has to cross the entire country to do it. As full as his volleyball schedule is,
there’s very little in the way of family time these days, and he knew that’s the way it would be when he decided to turn pro. “I told my family, ‘I’m not going to be
home for Christmas, not going to be home for Thanksgiving, not going to be home for Easter.’ The big family gatherings that we have, I’m not a part of that. It’s not an easy part of the job. I think that’s something that’s commonly overlooked with national team athletes. It’s not just me who’s doing that. It’s everybody. It’s something you have to learn to deal with, but you don’t learn to like it.” That’s not to say he would change any-
thing about his current life. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” he
says. “I love this job and this career. It’s my passion. Right now, I’m not dating anybody, so volleyball is my only love.” Female fans, take note.
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