Former NBA player, Georgia Tech great Anderson interested in USF

Posted Mar 1, 2010 by Scott Carter

Updated Mar 1, 2010 at 02:26 PM

If you’ve followed college basketball closely the past 20 years, the name Kenny Anderson is one you know.

Nearly every major school in the nation coveted Anderson in the late 1980s when he was coming out of New York’s Archbishop Molloy High School.

Anderson ended up signing with Georgia Tech, and later teamed with Dennis Scott and Brian Oliver to form “Lethal Weapon 3” as the trio led the Yellow Jackets to the 1990 Final Four.

Anderson, the No. 2 overall pick in the 1991 NBA draft, later played for nine teams during a 14-year NBA career, mostly with the New Jersey Nets and Boston Celtics.

The 39-year-old Anderson is scheduled to visit USF this weekend to talk with executive associate athletic director Bill McGillis and Bulls head coach Stan Heath about getting into college coaching. He also plans to attend USF’s regular-season finale at the Sun Dome against Connecticut.

The Bulls don’t have a current opening on their staff, but Anderson considers USF a program on the rise and would welcome an opportunity at USF. His wife, Tasha, graduated from USF in 2001 and she is now a clinical social worker at a Miami hospital.

Anderson also has plenty of ties to the New York-area, a major recruiting hub for Big East programs. He was inducted into the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008 along with Sam Perkins and Rod Strickland.

Since retiring from the NBA in 2005 and briefly playing overseas, Anderson has worked toward earning his college degree from St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens. He is scheduled to graduate in May and hopes to land a college coaching job once he earns his degree.

Click here to check out an excellent Washington Post story on how Anderson has worked to turn his life around the past several years, thanks in large part to Tasha and his kids.

“I’m really on the grind trying to let people know and plant some seeds,’’ Anderson said Monday afternoon. “I really want to get into coaching. I’m excited about graduating and getting my degree. For the last three or four years, I’ve been busy trying to get into college coaching.’’

Anderson met with FSU coach Leonard Hamilton last year and Hamilton offered him an opportunity to join the Seminoles as a graduate assistant, but Anderson still needed to finish his degree and didn’t want to uproot his family from their Pembroke Pines home.

Anderson recently met with Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, once Heath’s boss when Heath was an assistant for the Spartans, to discuss his options once he graduates.