By: Daniel Woods
MARTINSBURG, W.Va – The old Vince Lombardi quote is said so often that it’s become something of a cliche.
“Leaders aren’t born. They’re made.”
While Lombardi may have seven NFL championships and his name permanently etched on the trophy taken home by each Super Bowl champion, there may just be a living exception to his rule that’s walking the halls of a high school just north of Martinsburg’s city limits.
On the field, Spring Mills quarterback Max Anderson is a ferocious competitor – the spiritual heart of an unbeaten team with its eyes set on doing something the newest public high school in West Virginia has never done before.
Off the field, he’s a brother, a son, a nephew, a student, a mentor, a volunteer, and more noticeable than all – a leader.
The clearest view of Anderson’s inherent leadership doesn’t come when he’s wearing a helmet and shoulder pads on a Friday night. It’s when he’s around the future Spring Mills Cardinals that wants nothing more than to be the next Max Anderson.
“I’m sure they look up to us. They wish they could be in our position so I really try to give back as much as possible and give them a little role model,” he said.
And a role model he has become.
Gaining starting experience at quarterback as a freshman, Anderson has grown into the face of a program on the rise and a recognizable one to a legion of kids who light up whenever #15 is around.
“One of our boosters put it the best way,” Cardinal head coach Marcus Law said, “I’ve never had a fan club at 17 and that’s what he truly does. We even went over to Potomac (Intermediate School in Martinsburg) and we did a group project with my son’s fifth-grade class and everybody was like ‘Oh, where’s 15, where’s 15?’ so the joke is that he’s got a bunch of little fifth graders that admire him as well.”
Chapters of the Max Anderson Fan Club are popping up all over north Berkeley County these days but the most dedicated might just be walking the halls of Spring Mills High School already. Spring Mills contains one of the most unique combinations of students in the state with the district’s preschool program located within the high school.
Spring Mills preschool teacher Grace Pavlik is a card-carrying Anderson fan and that’s all thanks to a chance meeting and a close brush with disaster.
“I took my kids to use the bathroom so we were walking down the hallway, and of course the hallway’s pretty long. The bell went off and the high school kids started pouring out and then I saw Max,” she said, “Max absolutely ran over, dropped his bag, and escorted us back to my room. As we got back into my room, some of the kids were having a hard time just with all the noise and everything was kind of chaos so Max came in and talked to the kids for about ten minutes, kind of calmed them down and then he went back to class.”
What started out as Anderson jumping in as a good Samaritan became another way that he’s found to make an impact in his community. He’s become something of a “big brother” to the Spring Mills preschool class, accompanying them on educational trips, stepping in as a read-aloud fixture, and often being one of the first faces they see during the day.
“Almost every morning he comes and greets all my kids. He knows all the kids’ names. He has little handshakes with all of them,” Pavlik said.
“He also comes in every week and reads to the class. Last Friday he came in with his jersey on, picked the book, read to the kids, and stayed to answer questions from them about high school, about football and that’s just the kind of stuff he’s been doing,” she added.
Just as much as those visits are exciting for the preschoolers, Pavlik believes that Anderson’s time with her class is something that he’s found joy in.
“I feel like when he comes in my room he gets to just be free. He’s just a big kid,” she said.
It becomes obvious when watching his interactions with Pavlik’s class that a significant part of Anderson’s ability to be such a great leader comes from learned behavior. In the lives of most like him, there is an example to be found of a role model that first inspired them to grow up and reflect that personality to others.
Anderson is no different, spending childhood idolizing his uncle Josh Francis, an All-Big 12 Conference Honorable Mention linebacker for West Virginia University from 2011-12, and his father Dax who helped train Francis and instilled the concept of hard work into Anderson and his younger brother Xavier.
“Watching (Francis), he always inspired me to want to play football, want to be good at football, want to go high and even make it to the next level because he actually had a little career in the NFL so I really look up to him and my dad because my dad trained him too and was like a father figure to him,” he said.
That drive to achieve showed up early in Anderson’s life, so early in fact that he became a role model for his not-so-little brother. The younger Anderson, who stands 6-7 and currently holds Division I offers from Morgan State and Liberty thanks to his exploits at wide receiver and defensive end, spent much of childhood trying to emulate what a big brother could do.
“I always looked up to Max,” he said, “Even in basketball, he taught me how to get better at things. He taught me how to have a dog mindset and lift hard in the gym.”
While Xavier may be the youngest of the Anderson brothers, there are three more kids that can be seen on the sidelines following the Spring Mills quarterback around trying to be just like him.
It has become a common sight after games wherever the Cardinals go: three eager faces wearing red and blue #15 jerseys waiting however long it takes for Anderson to come their way. While he may be the head coach of an unbeaten team, Law isn’t the center of attention for his own three sons with QB1 around.
“You want your kids to look up to the right role models and ultimately, Max is that kind of kid,” Law said, “From a coach standpoint, that’s the ultimate goal. You want people in the community to recognize your players. You want to put them on that deal where they’re held to a higher standard and recognized.”
“Them just wanting to be great and look up to me and wanting to play football, wanting to have fun, I think it’s
amazing,” Anderson said, “I think it’s great for his family and it’s great for me. I really enjoy those kids. They’re really special to me and I really appreciate them supporting me like that.”
So is Max Anderson proof that Vince Lombardi didn’t know what he was talking about all those years ago?
That’s not up for judgment here but it is clear to just about anyone around the Spring Mills community that there’s something different about Anderson that just can’t be taught.
The most important part of it all is that he’s not afraid to be the face everyone recognizes.
“It’s amazing to be looked up to by kids and faculty throughout the school and just being able to have that spotlight on you is a great look and it’s just also great to have that and people think that of you,” he said.
Max Anderson does plenty of things on the football field that draw notice. Off the field though, he’s become impossible to miss and more than just the Spring Mills record books are benefitting from the things that make this hometown hero special.