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BICKNELL, Wayne County — Legend and legacy.
In our popular culture these terms to describe people are used all too often and all too casually. However, in the case of Wayne County’s Kerry Anderson, they aptly fit.
Anderson has been a fixture at Wayne High School for five decades, touching thousands of lives as a teacher and coach.
Anderson is mostly known as arguably the most successful wrestling coach in Utah prep history: He has amassed 16 state title-winning teams and another eight teams which placed second in state. His teams also won 20 region titles.
Anderson has coached 99 individual state champions and 27 All-American wrestlers, and many of his former wrestlers have gone on to coach their own programs.
Anderson’s coaching tree is immense and includes highly successful coaches such as George Chappell (North Sevier), Brian Pace (Dixie), Rhett Jeffery (Enterprise), Mitch Stevens (Clearfield) and Blake Turner (Millard) — all past or current head coaches where Anderson’s mentorship had huge influences. Turner, for example, has led Millard to four out of the last five 2A state titles.
Anderson’s own sons Corey, Brandon and Bryant won a combined 11 state titles while his nephew Steven won three titles. Although Wayne wrestles in 1A, scores of his wrestlers have gone on to the next level wrestling at BYU, UVU and even Cornell.
Long before his decision to retire, Anderson was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2002 along with seven other legendary coaches and officials. One of those in this 2002 class was Fred Davis, Anderson’s college coach at BYU.
Anderson has also been honored by the Utah Amateur Wrestling Foundation and Utah Wrestling Coaches Association Halls of Fame.
Wayne has had only two wrestling coaches in its school history, J. Alton Balle and Anderson. Anderson has been the coach since 1973. Though Balle never won a state title, Anderson has always been quick to give him credit for laying a great foundation and establishing a winning tradition.
Anderson’s contributions to Wayne’s athletic program go far beyond wrestling. He started the baseball program at the school 25 years ago and was instrumental in building of the baseball complex. Now Wayne has one of the preeminent small-school programs in the Beehive State. He also led the girl’s track program to seven state titles, including six in a row from 1997 to 2002.
Anderson is also highly prolific in the classroom, and teaching in a small school has allowed him to teach a number of subjects such as business, driver education, history, technology and physical education.
It would be suprising to find any student that went through Wayne High School in the past five decades that wasn't taught or coached multiple times by Anderson.
Anderson's legend and legacy is fully intact in the coaching world of Utah and beyond, but his imprint on the Wayne County community will indeed ripple through the ages.
Story by Brian E. Preece. Preece is a freelance prep sportswriter and was the former head wrestling coach at Provo HS from 1994-2006.
