verdugo288

Bull says:

I am hurt beyond belief and my heart is breaking, Scott was not only a great friend but also a mentor to me. He helped me navigate through high school, was there when I met Neepa and guided me through American legion. He was always there to help me and protect me, even when it might have been my fault. I felt like it was my duty to do the same for the young bucks underneath me, that was from Scott. like I said my heart is ripped in two, I’m so sorry that I didn’t get to see him one more time, but the time I did, was all smiles and a great time. One day when I see you again, we will have a great flip game upstairs! Ilove all you guys and we will always have a special bond, that’s forever. RIP Weapon!

John Workman says:

It has been 30 years since I was introduced to Verdugo Hills Post 288 American Legion and to Scott Anderson, aka the Weapon. A lot has happened in that time, for all of us. After all, we were young men at the time, not yet adults. When Gee passed on the news of Scott’s passing, my mind became flooded with emotions, memories and a wide range of sentiments. Two of those sentiments I want to share here in memoriam of the teammate that we’ve lost but also in recognition of the TEAM, which I view as something bigger than just a collection of individuals bonded by a common culture. For me, these are inextricably linked, and everyone on the team will agree that no one of us was bigger than the team and that the team wouldn’t have been the same without every one of us. You can make a team (lowercase) by bringing together a group of individuals and wearing the same uniform. Building a TEAM (ALL CAPS) requires people willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the team, people willing to give more than 100% every day and a passion to achieve a common goal. More to come on that…

As I reflect back on Weap, I’m disappointed really, to think that I didn’t really know him that well. Given that Scott was a few years older than me, I didn’t have the same recognition or history that I had with many of my other VH teammates that I had grown up playing with or against starting at 5 years old playing Youth House t-ball with Brancheau. Even in the time we were together with Verdugo, our relationship didn’t span beyond the Dome or the battlefield. We didn’t hang out. In fact most of Weap’s exploits on the field were mostly legend passed on to me from others that had seen him in action. I don’t know where Weap lived, I don’t know what car he drove (did he have a car?), I didn’t know anything about his family… It’s painful to say that, but it’s the truth. And yet, I can’t get passed how strong a bond I feel with him and how sorrowful I am that he has departed this Earth. As an aside, I hope that others will share some of their memories and stories of Weap please.

How can one feel so strongly connected with another, that I knew so little about I ask myself? I alluded to the different paths all of our lives have gone, but there is one thing that we have in common and there is one reason why that common experience has bound us so tightly together. It is just two letters on a hat (VH), but it is what was underneath that hat which is what I am referring too. I’m not talking about the stick figures Bull drew under the bill of his cap for each dose he gave out from atop the hill. No, I am talking about culture and team. Two soft terms that are often difficult to define, but easy to identify. Many people will credit the leader of a group of individuals as the one who creates the culture that binds them all together into a Team. Sure, we refer to groups of individuals all wearing the same uniform as a team, but until you have experienced something as rare as Verdugo, you don’t really understand the true meaning of TEAM (all caps for emphasis)! Magee, I give you a lot of credit, as I do to the General (wait was he the mastermind behind all this?), Hank and of course Weapon who may have been the quietest of our leadership, but I suggest, may just have been the perfect glue that bonded us all together. As I think about it more, the culture of this team wasn’t just set from the top, in fact I credit the leadership with recognizing the fire that burned inside each player and adjusting the culture to maximize that fire. Yeah, maybe that pulled some people out of their comfort zone, but wow, the machine that we became, let’s just say, this needs to be a movie!

I wish I could convey to my children the definition of TEAM that was Verdugo, but words alone could never do it. This is why I feel so connected to Scott despite not really knowing him. I hope that he knew in his heart that any of us would be there for him and always had his back. I hope everyone that donned a Verdugo jersey knows that.

I want to close with a tribute of sorts, an attempt to put my sentiments into perspective. As we think back to our Verdugo days, I often think of us as a platoon of soldiers with a mission that we were all willing to die for. (Given the Indy 500 style races to games in Saugus and beyond, I feel really lucky that none of us did die back then…). We have a lot of victories under our belt (as evidenced by the fungo scarred with cigar burns), we have a lot of battle wounds, we created a lot of legendary moments as Gee has so genuinely captured in this blog. Heck we had the nicknames to support it, The General, Weap, the Dome, Thunder, The Reverend…. Back then I didn’t understand why we needed a Reverend, sadly, now I do…

On a serious note, one of the memories from a different part of my life that keeps coming back to me as I dwell on the passing of Weap, one of our quietest and mightiest of soldiers, is the time that I visited Arlington National Cemetery. Walking up and seeing the rows and rows of neatly aligned little white crosses causes that same flood of emotion and introspection that I felt when I heard the news of Scott’s passing. And while I thought the burning flame monument to JFK was special to see, since I was named after the Kennedy brothers, John and Robert, it was the tomb of the unknown soldier that struck me to the core and which brings tears to my eyes when I think of Weap. If you aren’t familiar with it, I highly encourage you to look it up. As you will quickly come to see, it is not about the person(s) that are inside the tomb, they are unknown, but it is about the respect that is shown to a teammate that has been lost. The training that is required to become a guard of the tomb, the precision of their march back and forth in front of the tomb, the impeccable dress and perfectly polished rifle, the fact that the tomb is guarded 24/7 rain, shine, terrorist attack, no matter what. This is the greatest sign of respect I have seen in my life and it is the respect that I share for Scott “The Weapon” Anderson. May you rest in peace brother and may your family know that Verdugo is always here for them.

Respectfully,

–Hack