The dawn of a new school year was harshly interrupted by the somber news on Sept. 2 that longtime Lackey High School athletic director David Anderson had unexpectedly died of an “aneurism in the brain,” according to his widow Garnet, with “absolutely nothing” of a heads-up anything of that nature was wrong physically.
Anderson was 65 years old when he passed and would have been 66 the following month.
“It was so sudden, absolutely a total shock,” Garnet said on Sept. 4 in a phone interview as she fought back many tears while mixing in some joy and laughs as she began to reminisce about her late husband. “He was a very wonderful person.”
She then continued with a much more recent fond memory, the day before Anderson died, “He was at a ballgame on Saturday. On Saturday evening, I cut my hair and he was laughing at my hair since I cut it myself.”
By 7:15 a.m. Sunday, Garnet said she found Anderson unconscious at home and quickly called 911 when she could not get him awake.
Anderson was taken to Civista Medical Center in La Plata before being flown to the Shock Trauma Center of University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.
At 9:05 p.m. that Sunday is when Garnet received the call that Anderson had died.
“It’s a very sad day at Lackey,” Chargers head football coach John Lush said Sept. 3.
Lush recounted receiving an email from Anderson earlier that Sunday morning before the aneurism occurred. In fact, Lush got to see a lot of his athletic director during what became the final weekend of his life.
Anderson was working at Lackey’s varsity football match on Aug. 31, which saw the Chargers open the season with a 30-12 victory over visiting La Plata.
“It’s just crazy,” Lush added. “He was Lackey through and through. I think it’s important to realize that he lived and died doing what he loved most working for the kids and community of Lackey High School.”
He worked in Charles County Public Schools for 43 years, all but one of those at Lackey. In 1970, he arrived to Lackey as a physical education teacher. From that point, his relationship with Lackey was an inseparable bond.
Anderson became the Lackey athletic director in 1980 and thrived in the position the last 32 years though he never looked for recognition or public praise.
“David was an extremely honorable man. He was the first person in the doors and the last one out,” said close friend Glenn Jones, who spent 32 of his 37 years in the school system working alongside Anderson at Lackey before retiring on July 1 of last year.
AJ MASON