George Anderson

Every state tournament when you start to thumb through the tournament program, you quickly came across the name of Astoria High School player George Anderson, who is listed twice on early all tournament teams. You won’t be the first to mutter – who in the heck is George Anderson!The following text will introduce you to Anderson and his hoop honors while wearing the gold clad uniform of Astoria and why he is a member the Astoria High School Hall of Fame.

Anderson would be the first cager in history to letter four constructive seasons, from 1922 to 1925. Not only would he letter four times, he would still claim the honor of being a starter of the Fisherman all four of his years in school – a standard that still stands some 85 years later.

In Anderson’s first year with the year when you go to the state varsity unit, he teamed with future University of Oregon All American Algot “Swede” Westergren to help pace the Astorians to a 15-3 record. After wins over Newberg and Salem in the first two rounds of the state tournament Astoria would be dropped from the tourney by losing to Ashland High School be a narrow 28-27 margin. Ashland (13-2) would ride the win over Astoria into the state championship game, where they crushed Pendleton 45-22 for the title.

Anderson sophomore season saw the Martin Nelson coached Astoria team scored 12 consecutive wins, including victories over Medford and Myrtle Creek at the state tournament before falling in the championship game to University High School of Eugene in another hard to swallow loss, 28-25. Westergren won his second straight first team all-tournament spot, while senior Arni Kiminki and young sophomore George Anderson gained second team acclaim.

Home folk rarely saw an Astoria team lose at home in the mid-1929. In Anderson’s stint with the varsity Astoria would run up a 30-2 record on the local hardware – which just happened to be the newly opened patriot Gymnasium – and the two losses suffered were to non-high school squads. One such win would go down as the lowest combined score in Astoria history. That being a 7-4 victory over rival Seaside High School on January 19, 1923. A game that would see Anderson take game scoring honors with three points.

During Anderson’s four seasons with the Fishermen squad the Astoria teams would register yearly records of 12-1, 15-3, 10-4 and 16-3. Astoria would make it to the state tournament in all but one of Anderson’s year with varsity. In his junior season St. Helens own the right to represent the Lower Columbia at the state tournament by beating the Purple and Gold 15-12 in overtime at Clatskanie. Anderson’s top teammate that season was Carl Aase, who later became an administrator in the Ilwaco school district and the current Ilwaco High School gym is named in his honor.

His fourth and final season at the Jerome Street campus would see Anderson, the newly elected team captain, lead the local squad to a best two-out-of three series wins over Rainer to earn a ticket to the 1925 state classic. This would be one of the last years that the state association would run the tourney as a single elimination event Astoria (16-3 and 12-0 at home) would draw highly touted Salem High School in their opening encounter. Salem (23-5) toppled Astoria 22-12 in the opening round and the local five were on their way back home. Salem would go on to defeat Portland’s Franklin High School 20-12 in the championship game.

In one of the most unusual pieces of trivia in Astoria High School hoop lore. Anderson would ride his one game performance in the state tournament into a spot on the all-tournament first team.

When you take a look at stats from that 1925 states tournament outing and note that Anderson scored only three points – you get an idea of kind of respect Anderson had piled up during his career.