Anderson ’84: “I Am a Better Man Because I Attended VMI”

The Georgia Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association inducted Neville Anderson ’84 into its Hall of Fame Jan. 16, 2026. The Association did so in recognition of Anderson’s accomplishments at Athens Academy in Athens, Georgia, where he has coached for 23 years. They include leading three teams to state championships as a head coach and four as an assistant coach, along with coaching and mentoring many elite athletes.

Anderson’s journey as a coach began as an athlete at McKinley Technical High School in Washington, D.C. “I had a wonderful experience in high school, both on and off the track,” said Anderson, who participated in cross country and competed in the 800-meter and mile run in indoor and outdoor track. “My high school team was pretty good. That meant we traveled to places like White Plains, New York, and Knoxville, Tennessee, for track meets and participated in the Penn Relays. That was fun.”

Anderson was recruited to VMI by Wade Williams, who was the VMI track and field head coach from 1974–85. Williams’ teams won 16 state or Southern Conference titles, the first in 1978. He would be elected to the VMI Sports Hall of Fame in 2009. Williams offered Anderson a scholarship, but it was not just the prospect of competing at the top level of collegiate athletics that made VMI an attractive choice. “I was something of a free spirit in high school, and I thought the discipline would be good for me.”

When asked about his experience as a cadet-athlete, Anderson characterized it as mixed. “At the end of my rat year, I lost my scholarship. However, as faith would have it, that has turned into countless blessings in my life.” Thanks to the efforts of Col. Bev Read, Class of 1941, and the Institute’s financial aid officer, Capt. Daniel A. Troppoli, Anderson was able to stay at VMI. “Going back to the Corps,” he explained, “meant I would graduate, and I cannot be certain of that if I had remained on scholarship. I had struggled academically; therefore, I had more time for my studies.” Anderson did remain involved with the track and field program, serving as a clerk at meets at VMI.

In 2001, Anderson relocated from Southern California to Georgia to take advantage of a business opportunity. Initially, he had no plans to become a coach. Indeed, he claims that he “started coaching by accident.” In spring 2002, Georgia’s state high school championships were held in Jefferson, Georgia, where Anderson and his family lived. Anderson volunteered at the meet, where he met the coaches and athletes of Athens Academy, a private college preparatory school. “At the time, my wife and I were looking for a school for our daughters. As it turned out, the school’s head coach was a Washington and Lee graduate, and his wife graduated from Mary Baldwin College—as did the mother of the school’s top distance runner. The head coach asked me to volunteer as a coach on the spot. I agreed and started the next year. In my first year, a young woman I coached won the state 800-meter race. And I’ve been going back every year since.” He focused on cross country, as well as 800-meter races, the mile, and 3,200-meter. He became the head track and field coach at Athens Academy in 2017. This fall, he will take on the head coaching duties for the girls’ and boys’ varsity cross country teams, as well.

As to what has kept him coaching, Anderson explained, “I often joke that I like living vicariously through my athletes. Seriously, I enjoy helping young men and women achieve success during one of the most influential and vulnerable periods in their lives. When I was younger, there was a popular television show, ‘The Wide World of Sports.’ Its opening narration included the memorable phrase, ‘The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat.’ In a sense, I have been helping my athletes prepare to achieve the former and to deal with the latter, and that’s very satisfying.”

Anderson’s basic philosophy about coaching is twofold. “Overall, my mission is not just to help them become better runners but better people through running. As far as my approach is concerned, I tell people I don’t go out to win championships. I aim to build champions, and those champions will win championships. To build champions, I develop plans for each athlete according to his or her strengths and vulnerabilities, not one plan,” Anderson explained.

An indication of Anderson’s commitment as a coach is his attainment of the Level 2 Endurance coach designation from USA Track & Field. In 2017, the athletic shoe manufacturer Brooks named him the Inspirational Coach of the Year. Four years later, he was invited by Brooks to serve as a presenter on youth distance running at the Boston Marathon.

Further evidence of the effectiveness of his coaching philosophy is the fact that several of his runners held state records for their events, including the girls’ 800-meters, the boys’ and girls’ mile, and boys’ cross country. Furthermore, many of his runners have gone on to such elite collegiate programs as Harvard, Georgia, Wake Forest, Bucknell, Vanderbilt, and Stanford. Closer to post, two currently attend and compete for Washington and Lee University.

One of Anderson’s runners at Athens Academy who has been consistently in the upper echelon of running is Graham Blanks. Blanks ran for Harvard—where he was twice the NCAA Division I cross-country champion—and participated in the 5,000-meter at the 2024 Olympics. He was also the U.S. team captain at the 2026 World Cross Country Championship and is currently ranked ninth in the world in the 5,000 meter. “It’s something having an Olympian come from your school because it truly puts your program on the map and is a source of enormous pride for the entire school,” Anderson reflected.

He coached his niece, Tamara Ferguson ’04, the summer before she matriculated at VMI. “She had not run in high school. She was a ‘walk-on’ on VMI’s track team, and she rose to the challenge, becoming a successful runner. I knew she had the potential to succeed in the classroom and barracks as well as on the track.” In this assessment, he was correct. Ferguson later was captain of the women’s track team, served on the NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, and was president of the Promaji Club.

The first athlete that Anderson coached at Athens Academy who came to the Institute is Nathalie Lavender ’26. “I got a late start in track,” admitted Lavender. “I walked on the spring of my junior year because a friend who said she needed help getting ready for bikini season asked me. Before joining the team, I was somewhat introverted and wasn’t really applying myself in other ways.” Almost immediately, Anderson motivated her to become a dedicated runner. “He soon had me running three events plus the 400-meter, which wasn’t even my event.” At one point, years later, Lavender asked him why he had moved her into one of the fastest practice groups only a month into running. “He replied, ‘She never said, No.’ and I said, ‘I didn’t know saying ‘no’ was an option.’” That the training paid off was made obvious when, at a meet, Anderson asked Lavender to compete in the 400-meter. “I agreed and asked him for advice on race tactics. He just said, ‘Run as hard as you can.’ Well, I did and ended up winning the heat.”

Nathalie Lavender ’26, who graduated in May 2026, was Anderson’s first athlete to attend VMI.—Photo courtesy VMI Communications and Marketing.

Lavender described Anderson as “an amazing coach. He was always attentive to our needs, not only as a team but also emphasized the person-to-person relationship. He would devise workouts for each of us so we could develop the skills we needed to win. But it goes farther than that.” She continued, “He truly cares about people. He works hard at getting to know people, and he cares about them and values them as people, not just as runners.

“He was also very big on us developing the habits of self-discipline that serve as the basis of success and attending to detail. For example, he insisted that we wear sweats while warming up because being sweaty at the start of a race would give us an edge. It initially seemed crazy, but his advice turned out to be correct.”

When it came to VMI, Lavender remembers it seemed incongruous with her character. “I was an edgy kid, wearing black all the time. No one—including me—thought I’d go to a military school.” Anderson spoke with her several times, always stressing the enduring value of a VMI education as opposed to other schools she was considering. “‘Look,’ he’d say, ‘All these places are great. But they are for who you are. VMI is for who you will be.’”

“Nathalie and I are kindred free spirits. I observed at the time that she was brilliant, but easily became bored if she wasn’t challenged,” Anderson remembered. “VMI provided the type of extraordinary challenges that would motivate her. She helped other cadets at the Writing Center and the Daniels Library, and she excelled academically as an English major. The Institute put her forward as a candidate for a Rhodes Scholarship. So, I’m glad she took my advice, and I’m proud of her success.”

While he is proud of the highly successful athletes he has coached, like Blanks, he prizes the relationships he has forged with all the students he coached. “My alumni runners call themselves my ‘running daughters and sons,’ and I am proud of those running sons and daughters who did not break records or become outstanding scholars, but who have traveled many other paths to success and attribute their success in some part to my tutelage. My wife, Pam, and I spend a lot of time going to weddings all over the country, as my running sons and daughters ask me to witness the happiest time of their lives, and many of them tell me I helped make them the women and men they are.”

As to what he brings to coaching that he learned at VMI, Anderson said, “My entire being is rooted in the lessons from my parents and VMI, particularly those related to honor, loyalty, service, dedication, and perseverance. Several months ago, I wrote a letter to my BRs; in it, I described the extra preparation I received at VMI. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I am a better man because I attended VMI. There, I received a first-class education, a diploma that is universally respected, and met many amazing alumni who changed my worldview and so my life. Considering the effect of VMI on me, I know that my children—both my biological and ‘running’ children—are better because I attended VMI.”

As hinted above, to Anderson, coaching is much more than wins and losses. “To me, being a coach is a calling. When I was inducted into the Georgia Track and Field Hall of Fame, something that stood out at the ceremony was that the coaches in my class and several presenters spoke of their calling to be coaches. It is something special, and the best coaches are the ones who don’t limit themselves to developing athletes’ talents and skills but devote themselves to helping them become the best possible men and women.”