Indiana Cutters head coach excited for semi-pro football opportunity

Eric Anderson steps onto the Bloomington South High School football field and feels right at home.

In a white Hoosiers Football shirt, khaki cargo shorts and white tennis shoes, you wouldn’t be able to pick Anderson out as the coach of the Indiana Cutters, Bloomington’s semi-professional football team.

But then you see the whistle around his neck.

Behind his mirrored-lens sunglasses, Anderson draws every eye of the 20 or so assembled players before practice when he jogs onto the field blowing the coach’s whistle draped around his neck.

Saturday, Anderson earned his first win as the Cutters head coach, as his team defeated the Battle Creek (Michigan) Blaze 47-0 in the season-opener.

Anderson is in just his second year as a head football coach at any level. Last year, he coached the Indianapolis Generals, another semi-pro team. This is his first year with the Cutters.

Before that, the 2001 South Putnam High School graduate didn’t even know there were semi-pro football teams in Indiana.

“I learn more and more every day and every week,” Anderson said. “This was all green to me last year.”

After high school, he came to IU, eventually transferring to Indiana State, where he graduated.

Then he went back to the thing he really loved: coaching football.

He coached one year at South Putnam as an assistant, then three years at Monrovia, working as the head JV coach.

The head coaching job opened up at Monrovia, and Anderson was a finalist, but didn’t get the job.

That’s when he turned to semi-pro football.

Anderson wanted to be a head coach. He wanted to be the guy everyone was waiting on for practice to start. He wanted to be the guy people ran past on their way back to the locker room saying, “Hey, Coach!” and greeting him with a warm handshake.

He wanted to draw the plays, to be in control.

He wanted the head coach’s whistle.

Semi-pro football offered him that opportunity.

“The biggest adjustment (from being an assistant) is going from just focusing on one or two areas to having to oversee all of it,” Anderson said. “I enjoy that fact, kind of having my hand on everything. I do enjoy that. But that’s probably the toughest transition, just a lot more responsibility.”

The Cutters contacted Anderson about their head coaching vacancy. He said he came down and had lunch and determined it was the best fit for him.

In semi-pro football, Anderson breaks life down into two components. He says there’s real life, and there’s football life.

Coaching the Cutters isn’t his full-time job. For “real” money, he sells security on the north side of Indianapolis for ADT.

“That’s how I pay the bills, and this is how I have fun,” he said.

He coaches football because he wants to.

He wants to be in battle with a group of guys.

“Honestly, with football right now, the ultimate goal is just to have something to have fun with,” Anderson said. “Something to take my mind off of everyday work life, that type of thing, and just have fun. I love coaching. It doesn’t matter what sport. I’ve always loved it.”

Anderson is still working on making the adjustment from the high school game to the semi-pro game. He said the age range on the team at the beginning of the season was 18-40. Since then, the 40-year-old player has left the team, but there is another player in his late 30s on the team, meaning Anderson is coaching some people older than he is.

But the age range isn’t the part he has had trouble with.

“Getting along with guys who want to do the same thing I do, which is have fun on the football field, is not hard,” he said.

Before practice starts, he stands stationed just off the field, and as more players begin to trickle onto the field, he greets every one by name.

It’s been a while since he’s seen them.

Anderson only sees his players twice a week: once at the weekly practice, and on game day.

That’s a different feeling from when he laced up his cleats at South Putnam as a strong safety and wide receiver, and then when he started working as an assistant coach.

“In high school, you’re at school, so you’re at practice, you practice every day, play a game,” he said. “Usually six of the seven days you play, seven out of the seven you’re coaching. Here, we practice one day a week and have one game a week. It’s a lot less time commitment, but these guys have families, jobs, kids, so you’ve got to be able to be flexible with schedules as far as a lot of things are concerned. You’ve just got to be flexible.

“They’ve got real lives. They’re living in the real world and doing football on the side.”

As a semi-pro coach, Anderson understands he has a long way to go before his fun football world and reality join together. He’s not concerned about that. Right now, he’s just enjoying blowing his whistle, calling his team to a huddle and drawing up plays to prepare his team for Saturdays.

He’s enjoying being at home on the football field.

“It’s more of a hobby for me,” he said. “But if it turned into a career, like an assistant coach in the college ranks, I would love that. Actually, an assistant coach in the NFL would be awesome, too. I’m not living or dying by that dream. That’s just a pipe dream that’s way down the road if we get a couple opportunities, a couple of breaks, that type of thing.”