When Zach Matthews arrived at Kearsarge High School 10 years ago to teach and coach football, Cody Anderson was a senior captain on the football team. Now, Matthews is moving on to Bedford High, and the person replacing him as Kearsarge’s head coach is none other than Anderson.
“I’ve had the opportunity to see Cody in a bunch of different lights. I saw him as a student-athlete, I saw him come back to the area as a coach at Stevens, and now I’ve seen him as an assistant coach and teacher here at Kearsarge,” Matthews said. “So that relationship has come full circle. I’m excited to see Cody take over the program. I think Kearsarge is a special place and Cody, being a kid from that area, is familiar with the strengths and I think he’s familiar with where we need to improve things. So I think it could be a really good mesh.”
Matthews is taking over a Bedford program that has been to four straight Division I semifinals and won state titles in 2016 and 2018. He will also be a Wellness teacher at Bedford.
“It was a good opportunity for me professionally as a teacher,” Matthews said. “And when you look at the football side of things there’s a lot more kids involved in the program, it’s Division I, and it gives me the ability to grow a little bit, to take the next step, so to speak, which is exciting for me.”
Matthews spent five years at Merrimack Valley before going to Kearsarge in 2009. He was the defensive coordinator for the Cougars when they were the undefeated D-V champs in 2010 and he led Kearsarge to five playoff appearances in his eight seasons as head coach – two in D-V (2011, ’12), two in D-II (2014, ’15) and one in D-III (2017). He was also the head coach for the Cougars boys’ lacrosse team from 2015-19, leading Kearsarge to the playoffs in four of those five seasons, including a run to the 2017 D-III final.
“Zach was a game-changer here, and I think he will be wherever he goes,” Kearsarge AD Scott Fitzgerald said. “He and his family gave everything they had to Kearsarge and our students. People who are that invested most often have a high level of impact, especially on kids, and that was the case with Zach.”
It will be tough replacing Matthews, but it seems like Anderson has all the tools needed to be successful at Kearsarge. He’s from the area, he teaches at the school, he’s played at the next level (four years at Colby College in Maine) and he has a mind for the game.
“Cody is a really smart guy, really organized, and really hard working,” Fitzgerald said. “He’s different than Zach, maybe a little more quiet and a little more, I guess you’d say, cerebral. So his style will be different, but he’s equally as invested as Zach was, equally as supportive, and I have no doubt he can be equally as effective.”
Anderson was a three-year starter at linebacker and fullback for the Cougars. He was a defensive end at Colby, and he loved all the extra preparation and thought at the collegiate level.
“I’ve always been a student of the game and trying to understand the mental side of football,” Anderson said. “And then that was accelerated in college with the intensity of the film study and the schemes and the preparation each week.”
After graduating from Colby in 2014, Anderson taught physics at Stevens High in Claremont for two years and was an assistant football coach. He then spent a year teaching at Concord High before taking a year off to go back to graduate school. After that, he landed back at Kearsarge for the 2017-18 academic year as a math teacher. Last year he coached under Matthews at the varsity level and was head JV coach for the Cougars. He’s also married to a Kearsarge graduate, Emily (McGee) Anderson, who is a science teacher at the high school.
“It is neat to be back in the community where I went to high school, and I feel like I have a lot of connections here and the community has been very supportive. So I’m excited to see what this program can become going forward,” Anderson said. “(Matthews) was a great role model for me, both as a teacher and as a coach, and I want to keep some of the things he had in the program going, and then add my own spin to it.”
One aspect of the program that is expected to continue is its level of sportsmanship. The NHIAA recently gave Kearsarge the D-III Sportsmanship Award, marking the fourth time in the last five years the Cougars have earned that honor. During his search for a new football coach, Fitzgerald kept his eyes open for someone who could maintain Kearsarge’s culture of respect and integrity.
“That’s certainly a major part of our interview process, finding out what type of tone are they going to set, and we’re looking for someone to embrace that tone no matter what the sport they coach,” Fitzgerald said. “And I think it’s an extra challenge in a sport like football because it is so physical and you want kids to play on that edge and toe the line of complete aggression but controlled aggression, and that’s not easy to do.”
It’s not easy, but Matthews and the other Kearsarge coaches managed to it, and Fitzgerald expects to get the same kind of diligence from Anderson.
“The sportsmanship really comes from the coaches in every sport,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s a full commitment from the coaches on a day-to-day basis with their leadership setting the example, but it’s also reinforcement and those daily conversations that have to take place with an understanding that there’s a lot of emotions involved in athletics and these are teenage kids. So, it’s a growth process. It’s not an expectation of being perfect, but just being cognizant of how we conduct ourselves and then reflect on what just took place, whether it’s in practice or a game.”
(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3371 or tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20)