Jordan Anderson ‘brings the fire’ to UCLA volleyball

Jordan Anderson was 5 years old when her parents found out she couldn’t play YMCA soccer.

They watched as Anderson, having just been scored upon, found out for the first time in her life that her team was losing.

With their daughter in hysterics over the goal her team had just allowed, Kristina and Todd Anderson explained that she would either need to stop the other team from scoring or push the ball upfield and score herself.

Little Jordan promptly took over the game, covering the whole field as her fellow 5-year-olds scrambled to poke the ball.

“We knew YMCA was not for her because YMCA was supposed to be about the enjoyment of just playing,” Kristina Anderson said. “She didn’t just enjoy playing. She had to win.”

***

Anderson was a bona fide star at West Virginia.

Two years into her volleyball career with the Mountaineers, the 6-foot outside hitter had just been named to the All-Big 12 Conference First Team and the American Volleyball Coaches Association All-America Honorable Mention list after setting the school’s single-season record for kills per set. And Morgantown, West Virginia, is sports-crazy.

“Everyone there is all about the town, about Morgantown. Everyone knew you, knew of you,” Anderson said. “I was on billboards of student-athletes. If you looked in the paper, (there was) a little blurb about what’s going on in the city, and everything else was athletics. It was great.”

The next two years figured to be even better for Anderson. She was well on her way to eclipsing the Mountaineers’ career record for kills and her beloved coach Jill Kramer was in the process of rebuilding a program that posted a 15-41 record in the two years before Jordan arrived.

But the departure of athletic director Oliver Luck, a fierce supporter of the women’s volleyball program, opened up the possibility that Kramer might leave.

Anderson had such a good relationship with Kramer that she hoped to follow the coach. So when Kramer took the volleyball director job at Texas Christian University, just 20 minutes from Anderson’s hometown of Flower Mound, Texas, it seemed like a dream come true.

But because TCU was in the same conference as West Virginia, Anderson would have to sit out a year before taking the court for the Horned Frogs. That wasn’t going to happen. So John Sample, her former coach at the Texas Advantage Volleyball club, asked Anderson to name her two dream schools.

Above all, she wanted to reach the NCAA Tournament.

Anderson told Sample her dream schools were North Carolina and UCLA. The Tar Heels already had their starting outside hitters. They didn’t need another one.

The Bruins, on the other hand, were in desperate need of one.

***

Anderson was 12 years old when she told her parents she was going to earn a full athletic scholarship.

At the time, she was a prodigious soccer goalie, a position she had chosen because her coach said the goalie is the only one to play the whole game.

So Anderson started minding the net, showcasing her elite athleticism and aggressiveness. Kristina Anderson remembers watching her daughter knock down – and even sometimes pants – opponents who got in her way. But playing goalie offered limited action.

“As a goalie, you’re in the back,” she said. “Everything’s happening up there and then it might come to you a couple times, depending on who you’re playing.”

As a high school freshman, she found a sport where she could be involved in every play. Needing to pass the time before soccer season in the winter, Anderson tried out for volleyball and made junior varsity.

She quickly fell in love. Her goalie background had produced top-notch coordination and ingrained a willingness to dive for the ball, allowing her to quickly excel on the indoor court.

By her junior year of high school, she was playing outside hitter for an elite Texas Advantage Volleyball squad that placed second in the nation. The next year, her team won a national championship.

The individual accolades rolled in. During her senior year, Anderson was named MVP of her district and recognized as an All-American Honorable Mention.

But she continued to struggle with one aspect of the switch between sports. The All-District Goalkeeper of the Year as a senior, Jordan retained a goalie’s mindset when she played volleyball.

“My hardest transition, and it’s still there, is when the other team gets a point in soccer, that could be the entire game,” Anderson said. “The other team gets a point in volleyball, it doesn’t matter.”

The second part of that statement still troubles Anderson.

“I hate losing – any point,” she said. “One point, I’m just like, ‘Gosh-dangit, let’s go!’ And everybody else on the team is like, ‘Let’s calm down.’”

One might argue that Anderson, as a hardwired perfectionist, is more suited to playing goalie than outside hitter.

But that would be to ignore the fire.

***

There is one word that people use most often when talking about Anderson: fire.

“She just brings fire,” said UCLA coach Michael Sealy. “She’s an angry kind of player, she feeds off that emotion. If she hits a ball and gets stuffed, she wants to hit the next one harder.”

At its best, Anderson’s fire ignites her teammates, spreading a sense of excitement with each overpowering kill.

But internal fire is just like natural fire, Sealy said. If used properly, it can serve as fuel. Left untended, it carries destructive potential.

“It’s an amazing tool,” Sealy said. “But you’ve got to make sure that it’s fueling the next play to make a smart, dynamic play, not thinking too much and muscling through when another shot could work.”

***

As a goalie and now an outside hitter, Anderson has always had to have faith in her hands. It makes sense, then, that she scrawls Bible verses across the athletic tape on her fingers.

For Anderson, her belief in a higher power helps explain the unlikely circumstances of her volleyball journey.

“I believe that it was basically none of my doing,” Anderson said. “I think I’m here for a reason, and it’s bigger than myself, it’s bigger than UCLA. I think I’m here to show people that you can do anything.”

The timing of her arrival might convince even non-religious Bruin fans of divine intervention.

With First-Team All-American outside hitter Karsta Lowe graduating, Sealy had a huge hole on his roster. When he heard Anderson was looking to transfer, he quickly seized the opportunity.

“We had a ton of ball control, we had certain pieces in place and we just needed some more firepower,” Sealy said. “(Anderson) hits a heavy ball. … She has amazing range. … She can go anywhere from sharp down the line to the five-foot line crosscourt.”

Sure enough, Anderson has stepped right in where Lowe left off, leading the Bruins in points and winning MVP at each of the team’s first two tournaments.

“She brings so much physicality and athleticism on the court,” said junior libero Taylor Formico. “After losing Karsta last year, I think we needed someone kind of big like her with a heavy arm.”

As seamless a fit as she is on the court, Anderson faced a difficult transition when she came to UCLA during spring quarter.

“It was really tough at first because it wasn’t like I wanted to transfer,” Anderson said. “I was really comfortable there, had my friends.”

Anderson’s always struggled to move on – whether from mistakes or from Morgantown.

“Basically, I wasn’t letting the past be the past,” Anderson said. “I was trying to hold on to a lot of stuff.”

She leaned on family and teammates. Kristina Anderson, who talks to her daughter every day, made several trips to stay with relatives in Santa Monica. Formico, who transferred a year earlier from UCSB, reached out and helped Jordan settle in.

By now, with a quarter of school, two tournament MVP awards and a UCLA/Muscle Milk Student-Athlete of the Week honor under her belt, Anderson is perfectly comfortable, with her sights set on a national championship.

It’s a lofty goal, but not out of character.

“I want to be at the top of everything. Even when I’m driving, I hate when a car’s in front of me, I’ve got to go catch that car,” Anderson said. “But then I can’t speed because I’m too much of a goody two-shoes so I’m like five over (the speed limit) trying to go catch that car.”

The rules of the road might prevent her from catching every car she chases.

But there is no speed limit on the court. So what’s to stop her?