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Former players gather to recall
a legendary football coach
By Maureen E. Moran ’89
For a brief moment in October, life’s
day-to-day cares faded, and the past
became the present as alumni gathered
to remember a football coach known
simply as “Doc Anderson.”
“He was a legend,” says
Thomas Hennessey ’63. “He
was like a god.”
A physician by profession, Edward
Anderson coached at Holy Cross during
the 1930s as well as during the 1950s
and ’60s. On Oct. 11-12, close
to 100 gridiron veterans from the graduating
years of 1950-67 gathered to visit
with former teammates and recall a
man who left a lasting impression on
those who played on Fitton Field during
his tenure.
Anderson was a well-known figure in
college football, having played under
Knute Rockne at Notre Dame. Between
his six seasons during his first stint
at Holy Cross and his 15-year tenure
during the ’50s and ’60s,
Anderson had a record of 129-67-8.
Rev. Thomas Henehan, MM, ’60
played both offensive guard and defensive
middle linebacker in the ’57, ’58
and ’59 seasons. This was the
second time Anderson had coached a
member of the Henehan family: While
studying medicine in Chicago and playing
for the Chicago Cardinals, Anderson
was DePaul University’s football
coach—and Henehan’s father
was one of his players.
Now living in Italy, Fr. Henehan attended
the October reunion. “I found
Anderson a meat-and-potatoes, matter-of-fact
type of coach,” he says. “He
never really was the type of coach
that I would call ‘inspirational.’ He
never got us hollering or jumping up
and down about a game. He had the attitude
of giving the opponents a good game
and leaving it at that.”
A history major at Holy Cross, Vic
Rimkus ’53 played under Anderson
during Anderson’s first year back
at the College in 1950. Rimkus was
impressed by the person he describes
as “a great gentleman.”
“I have nothing but the greatest
respect for him as a football coach
and as an individual,” Rimkus
says.
Aside from reminiscences and laughter,
the Doc Anderson reunion included a
reception and dinner on Friday night.
Mass began Saturday’s events,
which included a luncheon and, of course,
the football game against St. Mary’s,
which Holy Cross won 24-22. At Saturday
evening’s dinner, Clark Booth ’61
offered the keynote address, in which
he shared memories of a man who held
his players to the highest of standards.
“He commanded absolute awe,” Booth
recalled in his address. “Square-jawed,
iron-willed, ramrod tough, blunt and
stern, the Doc had that quality of ‘gravitas,’ and
he used it well.”
An admirer of Anderson’s, Booth
described a Renaissance man, a complex
individual who was a practicing physician
at Rutland Veteran’s Hospital
even as he coached a major football
program.
“He was strongly linked with
genuine immortals as Rockne’s
captain, an All-American end, Gipp’s
pal, coach of Kinnick and Osmanski,” Booth
said. A colonel in the medical corps
during World War II, Anderson was only
the sixth coach to win 200 games—and
he was an expert in the treatment of
special needs children, he added.
“The Doc was all of these things,” Booth
stated. “A highly improbable character
and, in the end, as much myth, as man.”
Many of those who played under Anderson
say that his exacting standards and
high expectations were a legacy they
have carried with them in the years
since they left Holy Cross. After graduation,
Rimkus went on to be a teacher/football
coach at Hudson High School in Hudson,
Mass. “I modeled my attitudes
toward teaching and coaching after
his,” he says.
Anderson was hands-on, Hennessey says,
pushing his players to do their best. “You
have to work hard, you have to play
hard,” he recalls learning from
his years under the famed coach.
Fr. Henehan offers a slightly different
perspective on the lessons he learned
while playing for Doc Anderson. “I
learned that football was a game that
college students played for fun,” he
writes. “We went to Holy Cross
to study and learn, and playing football
was not the most important part of
our student life, but it was played
seriously and turned out to be an essential
part of my life at Holy Cross.”
For the Crusaders who attended the
Doc Anderson reunion, it was an opportunity
to reconnect with a past that, suddenly,
didn’t seem so long ago. Because
the reunion crossed class lines, “you
saw people ahead of you and behind
you—all the people you played
with,” Hennessey says. “You
saw people you idolized.”
Fr. Henehan reveled in visiting with
individuals he hadn’t seen in
more than 40 years. “I was very
proud to be a part of that group of
men,” he writes. “It brought
back memories of how it was to be an
underclassman, having looked up to
the men ahead of me.”
Football at Holy Cross has changed
since the Doc Anderson days—Boston
College is no longer on the schedule,
and Holy Cross is now a member of the
Patriot League. But October’s
reunion was a chance to touch the past
and remember a singular individual
whom Rimkus calls “a great individual
and a great coach.”
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