By BRIAN KELLY
bkelly@bainbridgereview.com

It started the same as so many other happy times before for Mike Anderson.

Love-love.

A crowd of more than 400 people gathered in the Bainbridge High School commons at the end of September to give a loving farewell to Anderson, a longtime teacher at the school and the Spartan tennis coach who passed away unexpectedly in early September.

“Mike touched our lives in so many ways,” said Bainbridge High Principal Mary Alice O’Neill.

District Superintendent Faith Chapel said many throughout the school district were grieving the loss.

“He always greeted us with a smile. He was unfailingly upbeat and positive. He always had something warm and kind to say to everyone,” Chapel said.

To the students gathered at BHS, Chapel said: “He loved you. He cared deeply about you.”

He was generous to his colleagues, supportive of the staff, and was Bainbridge High’s always-on-the-go ambassador in many community efforts.

“He gave, he gave and he gave some more,” Chapel said.

His wife Kim told how they met online in October 2012, and were married two years ago.

Though their time together was short, it was full, and she said she appreciated what they had.

“I am the luckiest girl in the world,” she said.

He hasn’t been far, she said, recalling how a bush in their yard had bloomed long ago, but last week, one small white bloom appeared.

“I know where that came from,” she said.

There was something else, as well, on the morning of the memorial when she kept trying to get the printer for her computer to work, and it wouldn’t. Just the second page would come out and things grew increasingly frantic and frustrating.

“I just said out loud, ‘Come on, Mike. Help us out.’

“And all of a sudden: bizz, bizz, bizz,” she said, mimicking the sound of the printer.

“I know he is still with us,” she said.

Mike Anderson, 60, was a longtime educator and taught for the past 19 years at Bainbridge High. He was the head coach for the Spartans co-ed tennis team, an economics teacher at BHS and the career, technical education director at the school and head coach of Kingston High School’s boys tennis team.

He died just a few days after the start of the school year, on Sept. 7 in a drowning accident in Tiger Lake in north Mason County.

The Sept. 27 memorial was filled with friends and family, students and staff and teachers who had known him over the past 20 years, as well as coaches and representatives from other Metro League teams. Members of the Kingston and Bainbridge tennis teams, wearing their red and blue team jackets, filled a row near the front of the audience.

On one side of the podium, a large bouquet of flowers, yellow lilies mostly, set in a large glass vase filled with tennis balls.

And next to the flowers, a manual tennis scoring stand, with the numbers set to 0-0. Love-love.

The flowers were just like the one that Kim Anderson had sent to him at the high school after their first date; an event that prompted a school-wide announcement over the intercom by the “voice of the Spartans” Mary Sue Silver.

“He was totally embarrassed; it was great,” Kim Anderson said.

They were married on the shore of Gig Harbor, where they met.

Her dad, then 91, was best man and her mom, then 87, was the maid of honor.

Kayaking at Whistler or in Gig Harbor, watching the Davis Cup in Idaho, riding bikes on Coronado Island, their short time together was filled completely.

“We just loved, loved being together,” she said.

“We packed so much into these last two years, but that was for a reason.”

His lessons went well beyond a tennis court or classroom.

“Be kind to others,” his wife recalled. “Extend friendships. Work hard. Play hard. Strive for your best.”

And when it seems like your best might not be good enough, she continued, “Step back, think, and believe in yourself.”

“And if you’re on a tennis team,” she added, “please, please beat Lakeside and Seattle Prep.”

At the far end of the commons, seven tables were filled with photographs, mementos and sports memorabilia. There were family memories on display and Spartan souvenirs.

On one end, a birth coin set with a Lincoln penny to a Franklin half dollar from 1953, the year Anderson was born; a toddler’s corduroy cowboy outfit embroidered with a covered wagon and cowboy (and a black-and-white photo behind it with a young Mike Anderson in the outfit, complete with cowboy hat and holstered cap gun on his hip). On another table, his 1972 letterman’s jacket.

Nearby, his glasses, clipboards, keys to the high school, Tully’s Coffee travel mug, trophies, a signed program from a “one-man” clinic held by basketball coaching legend Bobby Knight, and hardbound books from early in his coaching career; “Practical Modern Basketball” by John R. Wooden and “Winning Basketball with the Free-lance System.”

Over here, a basket filled with nine wooden rackets, and there, the small brown sign that he loved: “Top 3 reasons to become a teacher: June – July – August.”

The bonds he created with his fellow teachers and students were strong and everlasting.

“He was a true friend,” said fellow BHS math teacher Dan McLean. “And that’s about the most special thing that anyone can say about Mike.”

They shared a love of tennis, McLean called, something he learned from Anderson, and tennis became a part of their lives.

He recalled how they often played not only for their league on Bainbridge but in “exotic” places such as Sequim and Lakewood.

“We played on grass there,” McLean recalled of their Lakewood visit. “It wasn’t a grass court; we just played on the grass. It really didn’t matter.”

Now, on his bucket list, McLean said he hoped to see the U.S. Open.

“I probably can’t afford to, but I’d like to buy two chairs,” he said, “and have Mike sitting next to me.”

At the end, after Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of “Over The Rainbow & What A Wonderful World” was played — a song that a teary-eyed Mike Anderson had repeatedly reminded his wife he wanted played at his memorial service some day — members of the Bainbridge and Kingston tennis teams that he coached made a line at the front of the audience. On the count of three, gently tossed tennis balls into the crowd.

“Love from Mr. A!” they shouted.