‘You’re Young Now:’ Jeremiah Anderson’s road back to the court

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Jeremiah Anderson put basketball on hold after graduating high school.

His recruiting process imploded during his junior year, and his college basketball dream seemed that it would be unfulfilled. Then, at 17 years old following his high school graduation in 2019, he decided to move in with his grandmother in Tobyhanna, Penn. Anderson helped around the house for three years, hardly touching a basketball, trying to decide what to do with his life.

But after taking a trip back to his hometown of Brooklyn, playing in an open gym with old friends, and some inspiration from his great-grandmother, he decided that he was ready to play college basketball. Four years on, Anderson, now a decorated college player, comes to Merrimack for his final year of eligibility, looking to lead the Warriors to the Division-I NCAA Tournament for the first time.

Growing up in Bed-Stuy, Anderson was always surrounded by basketball. His mom, grandmother, uncles and more all played. He joined multiple AAU teams and played all around the city, including for the famous Gauchos program. Anderson played two seasons at Brooklyn powerhouse Eagle Academy, but heading into his junior year, his dad moved him away to East Stroudsburg, Penn.

He said that he didn’t have a say in the move, and that he wouldn’t have moved if it was up to him, but it wasn’t.

Anderson made friends quickly in East Stroudsburg. He won a championship in his first season there as well, but something was missing. He was young for his grade, and he attempted to reclassify to be a sophomore, but mid-year, he was deemed too advanced academically to be a sophomore and was switched, overnight, to a junior.

“(That) ruined most of my recruitment,” Anderson told Mid-Major Madness.

With the interest no longer coming in, and separated from his Brooklyn roots, Anderson began to lose his love for basketball. He embraced the pressure cooker that was the NYC basketball scene.

“Growing up in Brooklyn, it’s competition everywhere,” he said. “It’s like you’re fighting with all your friends just to be the best one. It wasn’t the same when I went to PA.”

So when Anderson graduated high school in 2019, he didn’t put a ton of thought into a prep year. He was ready to move on from the game of basketball and become more family-oriented.

His grandmother, Cheryl Dancy, was a manager at the Westin Hotel on 43rd Street in midtown Manhattan, but lived all the way out in Tobyhanna. She commuted two-plus hours each way, every day, just to get to work. Even then, she’d still make her way to watch Anderson’s high school basketball games.

She says that she always offered the opportunity to her grandchildren to live with her and help her take care of her dogs while she commuted, but only Jeremiah and one other grandchild ever took her up on the offer.

The plan, Dancy says, was supposed to be temporary while Anderson figured out what he wanted his next steps in life to be.

“At first, he didn’t know what he wanted to do when he came out of school,” Dancy told Mid-Major Madness. “If he wanted to get a job, if he wanted to go to college. So I said, ‘until you decide – but you got to make a decision – you can stay with me.’”

That arrangement proved helpful for both. Anderson took care of Dancy’s pets, went to the grocery store, and helped around the house. They would go shopping or out to eat together on Dancy’s days off. Sometimes, she’d even take Anderson into New York to watch a basketball game on her day off.

Dancy says that at the start, Anderson needed guidance on what to do, but as she kept drilling the tasks into him, he got better. Each day, he would boast to Dancy about what he completed.

“He’d say, ‘Look what I did today!’” Dancy said. “‘I took the dogs out, I helped out in the yard.’ At first, they’re a little reluctant to do it, but then after a while, they catch on because they don’t really want to hear you constantly saying stuff to them.”

But as time went on, the temporary move turned more permanent. Months became years, and Dancy didn’t see Anderson getting closer to making a decision on his life. She had to push him to make a choice, but she didn’t want to tell him what choice to make.

“I always told him ‘You have to do something,’” Dancy said. “‘You can’t sit in a house and do this all day. You’re going to have to take care of yourself one day. So you have to make a decision.’”

Trade school was on the table, as was going to college or getting a job, and basketball was mostly in the rearview mirror. Anderson said he didn’t pick up a basketball for the first year that he lived with Dancy. Then, on a trip back to Brooklyn, he went to play pickup at an open gym.

But to his surprise, he still had some game left in him. He sat down with his great-grandmother, Dancy’s mother, who still lived in Brooklyn, to discuss the situation. He explained that he was starting to enjoy playing basketball again and that he missed playing pickup.

His great-grandmother reminded Anderson that he still had time to pursue his dreams.

“You’re young now,” she told him. “Whatever you’re doing, working and hanging out with your friends, that will always be there. You won’t always be young. You won’t always be able to play basketball.”

“That conversation changed my whole mindset,” Anderson said. “From there, I just had the mindset like while I’m able to, I’ll never forget my love and passion, and I’ll keep playing until I can’t.”

Thanks to the time that he spent living with Dancy, he was more responsible and ready to take on a college lifestyle. His perspective on life changed as well, he just needed somebody to tell him.

“It taught me to be a little more responsible,” Anderson said. “With basketball, you’re moving around a lot, I don’t want to speak for all basketball players, but basketball is kind of like an easy way out and you don’t really have as much responsibility as the average person when you’re a basketball player because your life revolves around basketball.”

“I think he was more prepared for college after that,” Dancy said. “He was with me, but he was by himself, so he had to be independent.”

But he had to find a place to play college ball.

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At that open gym in Brooklyn, he ran into an old friend from Bed-Stuy. Jamir Cheek is a few years older than Anderson. Anderson described him as a “big brother who I grew up with.” Cheek graduated from Wiley College in Texas in 2021 after a strong college career. He landed a job as an assistant coach at NCCAA Clinton College in South Carolina after one of the Wiley assistants, Dee Frazier, took the head coaching job there.

Cheek says that he and Anderson were in touch “periodically” while Anderson lived in Pennsylvania. When Anderson told Cheek that he was looking for a place to play college ball, he wanted to help.

“I saw him at the open gym,” Cheek told Mid-Major Madness. “And I’m like ‘this dude can actually play, he’s got potential.’ Like why not help him if I’ve already been in his shoes, trying to figure it out, find a school, find a situation that works for you.”

When he got back to Clinton, Cheek discussed bringing on Anderson with Frazier. Cheek thought that Anderson just needed to be seen and could play at a high level, and he wanted to give him that opportunity. He told Anderson that he could make a difference.

Anderson, though, was a little skeptical initially. He didn’t want to move all the way to South Carolina, but after discussions with his family, it became clear that this was the best way to pursue his dreams.

“They backed me on this idea,” Anderson said. “They said they think I should do it.”

Throughout the season, Cheek helped Anderson adjust to the college level. They conducted late-night workouts and spent many hours together in the gym. Anderson was one of the best players on his high school team, but going to college, he had to prove himself.

Anderson was the backup point guard, but Cheek says that he played starter minutes. Coming off the bench was new for Anderson, as was the life of a college athlete. He would call his grandmother often, discussing all of the challenges that he faced, but Dancy told him to trust the process. Anderson never lost trust in Cheek.

“It was really hard at first,” Anderson said. “A lot of stuff that I expected didn’t really happen. And that year taught me a lot.”

Cheek, though, didn’t think Anderson had much of an adjustment period.

He said that he had to help him “keep it professional,” but thought that Anderson adjusted well on and off the court.

“He was electric for us,” Cheek said. “He was one of the fan favorites. A lot of people in the school loved him because of his personality. He had a lot of charisma, good attitude. Then we would just put the extra work in, and it showed. It was effortless.”

From there, Anderson was ready for the next step. He took a chance, leaving Clinton to play JUCO ball at Coastal Bend College in Texas. Cheek didn’t want to hold him back after he shined, helping lead Clinton to the national championship game, doing so with a solid GPA.

“He did everything we asked of him,” Cheek said. “If you got a better opportunity, then chase it.”

Once again, Anderson was a stellar player at the JUCO level. He averaged 17.4 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 5.0 assists per contest. But that was a challenging year for him personally.

He said that at JUCO, everybody was chasing the same goal of playing at the Division-I level. While having a team aligned on one goal can bring a team together, when it’s an individual goal Anderson says, it can separate them.

“At JUCO, everybody’s just kind of playing for themselves,” Anderson said.

Some of his teammates never played basketball again after that season, but Anderson’s play kept him moving up the ladder. He committed to play at Division-II Valdosta State.

However, he never made it to Valdosta. When his grades came back from JUCO, he realized that he wouldn’t be eligible to play, and the coaching staff pulled his scholarship offer.

“It was definitely some hard convos,” Anderson said. “But I have a very, very strong support system behind me. I feel like my parents (and grandparents) are going to back me through whatever I got going on and just kind of guide me the way they feel is right.”

He was thinking that he wanted to go play NAIA so he could get on the court immediately, but he ended up circling back to a local school that he’d previously turned down.

Felician University head coach Ivan Lewis was willing to give Anderson a shot to get his grades back up and get on the floor after sitting out a year. That belief initially meant nothing to him, but he eventually agreed to commit to a year of ineligibility.

“Sitting out that year was the best thing that I ever could’ve done for my career,” Anderson said.

He sat back and observed exactly what Felician – a team that missed the CACC Tournament that year – needed to get over the hump on and off the court. Anderson molded himself into the leader that he knew he needed to be.

Before his second season at Felician, he told his team that they were going to win a championship.

“I’m the kind of guy who believes in the word of mouth,” Anderson said. “The things you say are very powerful.”

Just like his previous two stops, he was instantly a star player. Anderson won CACC Player of the Year, averaging 20.6 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.3 assists per game. He led Felician to a 28-4 season, winning the CACC regular season and tournament titles, and a trip to the second round of the DII NCAA Tournament.

Dancy saw Anderson’s development as a leader.

“I think those guys look up to (Jeremiah) as a leader,” she said. “I noticed it last year while he was at Felician. I don’t think it was the same in high school. Now that he’s in college, his approach is different.”

When Anderson entered the portal after his stellar season at Felician, he ran into complications. Coaches saw the graduation year ‘2019’ on his player profile, and immediately discarded him, thinking that there was no way that he could be eligible. However, Anderson didn’t enroll in college until 2022 at Clinton, meaning that his five-year clock was still running. Since he sat out a season at Felician, he still had a fourth year of playing eligibility within that time.

Joe Gallo and Merrimack, though, did take the time to call Anderson. It was different from every other portal conversation that he had.

“It was a real genuine conversation,” Anderson said. “I could tell that he was really invested in me.”

When he committed to Merrimack, he was Gallo’s last portal acquisition, and joins a long line of talented Merrimack point guards. From Juvaris Hayes to Javon Bennett to Budd Clark to Kevair Kennedy last year, Gallo has proven to be a point guard whisperer. Anderson is the next in line, along with freshman Ayden Johnson.

He heads into the season on this publication’s Preseason All-Metro First Team, and a prime candidate for Player of the Year. The previous Merrimack point guards mentioned, though, all took a different path. They committed to the Warriors out of high school. For Anderson, it was seven years and multiple completely different lives in between high school and Merrimack. He turns 25 in December.

Cheek stays in touch with Anderson to talk about strengths and weaknesses and how Anderson can keep getting better on the floor.

Dancy doesn’t think too much about how unique Anderson’s path is among Division-I basketball players. She thinks that Anderson just wasn’t sure what he wanted to do and needed some time to think about it.

Anderson, though, still thinks about that conversation with his great-grandmother, and how he found his way back to his dream.

“Just to get an opportunity to play at one of the highest levels of basketball,” Anderson said. “This has been a dream of mine all my life. Now that it’s finally here, I’m ready to showcase my talent and just show what I could do to help this team be the best that it can be.”