03/13/2019
Dear Zionsville Girls Golf Family:
After a great deal of thought, prayer, and soul-searching on the matter I have decided to retire as the Girls’ Varsity Golf Coach. For the last 11 years, I have poured my heart and soul into this program and stepping away will be extremely difficult. I have truly loved representing the Zionsville Girls’ Golf Program and working with such amazing student-athletes, parents, and coaches. I consider this team to be an extension of my family and will miss it dearly.
Last fall, my youngest daughter Everette was diagnosed with cerebral palsy after a brain MRI showed that she had suffered a stroke. As you can imagine, this diagnosis has had an extreme impact on my wife and I and has made me completely reassess my priorities. My oldest daughter Addison is about to turn 5, and Everette is 2. These are years that I won’t be able to get back with my girls, and this is time that I need to devote to my family. As much as I have loved being the varsity coach of the Zionsville Girls’ Golf Program, it is time that I become the head coach of Team Anderson.
Before I had a family of my own, this team was my family. Over the years, we have shared good times and hard times. We have laughed together (man did we ever laugh!) and we cried together. When my mom passed away from leukemia in 2010, members of the team that year surprised me with flowers at her funeral. When I got married in 2013, parents of the team that year attended my wedding. When I had open-heart surgery in 2015, the team stopped by my house to bring me a care package and to pray with me. When I had my two daughters, you got them gifts and made them feel like the most important people in the world when you would see them. I’ve seen this team rally around players who have lost parents and friends, and I have witnessed the best kids in the world celebrate all of life’s events with one another…big and small…as a family. None of these things are golf related, but all of them are some of the fondest memories that I will look back on and cherish.
I sincerely thank you all for what you have given me and for blessing my life. Leaving this team is the hardest coaching-related decision I have ever made, but it is the right one for me and my family. As a dear friend recently told me, the right thing isn’t always the easy thing. I’m sure that I will bring Addison and Everette out to watch their heroes play on occasion and I will always be the #1 fan of Zionsville Girls’ Golf. Thank you for the opportunity of a lifetime…I will always treasure it.
Jeff Anderson