Ridgefield softball coach Dusty Anchors stops to pose for a picture last season while raking the field at Ridgefield High School.
During the second week of January, Dusty Anchors, head coach of the Ridgefield High School softball team, called a special meeting with his squad.
In the weeks prior, he had been unsure of whether or not to hold the meeting, but ultimately he decided that telling the girls his heart was failing was the right choice.
Keeping them in the dark, he reasoned, would contradict one of the main principles his coaching was built on.
“Having them understand what I’m going through … it’s just a part of life for them,” he said. “They’ve gotta deal with it.”
To Anchors, a failing heart is just another obstacle he’s come up against and will do his best to overcome. Like the many other obstacles he has faced during his 67 years, the veteran fastpitch coach is determined to not let his condition dictate his life — a lesson he learned early and plans to pass along to the younger generation he mentors.
Exposure
Anchors is no stranger to physical affliction.
The root of his trials were planted during his time in Vietnam when he was exposed to Agent Orange, a herbicide used by U.S. forces to combat the forest cover of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops. Experts later discovered that the use of Agent Orange led to health issues among those exposed, including cancer.
In 1985, Anchors was found to have Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A tumor — he ironically described it as the size of a softball — was on his heart. He was treated with radiation, which killed the cancer, but came with a cost.
“As it turns out, radiation is the gift that keeps on giving,” Anchors said.
In 2005, he began having problems with his heart, and in 2006 he had a heart attack. Two years later, he had open-heart surgery. Given Anchors’ condition at the time, doctors wanted to perform a quadruple bypass. But because of radiation scarring, they couldn’t.
His own plan
After recieving what treatment he could in 2008, Anchors recovered and was in good health until last summer. His body began to break down. He had trouble walking more than 20 feet without losing his breath, and after a few visits to his cardiologist, they decided to book him an appointment at Oregon Health and Science University.
On Nov. 18, he went in for a consultation that turned into an 18-day stay.
Medical staff removed more than 20 pounds of fluid from around his body before informing him, at the end of his stay, that he was in the final stage of heart failure.
“I have a daughter getting married July,” Anchors said of the timetable the doctors gave him. “They’re going to do their best to keep me going until July.”
That might be the doctors’ opinion, but Anchors isn’t convinced — he has other plans.
“This is just a wall for me” he said. “I always say, ‘if you run into an eight-foot wall, you find a 10-foot ladder to get over; if you run into a 12-foot wall, you find a 15-foot ladder to get over it.”
He has a few good reasons to believe he can prove the doctors wrong. He didn’t smoke or do recreational drugs prior to the diagnosis, and he’s recently made some tweaks to his diet.
After the war
Anchors’ ability to stay positive, and determined that his latest “wall” won’t control his life stems from a decision he made long before Summer 2017.
Anchors made a conscious choice when he returned from Vietnam not to spend too much time reflecting on the ugliness of war or allowing it to infect him the rest of his life.
“I didn’t give myself time to really think about it,” he said. “Even to this day, I don’t talk very much about my experiences in Vietnam. It’s just a section of my life that happened and I’ve moved on.”
Anchors leaned on that same mindset when faced with the aforementioned physical trials through the years, and now, as he takes that mindset into his bout with heart failure, he hopes his athletes are taking note.
The will to overcome
Anchors believes good coaching ultimately comes down to teaching young athletes how to overcome various trials they may come up against. Whether it be a muffed play on the diamond in high school or a serious trial in their adult life, the ability to keep fighting, to keep looking for a taller ladder is the most important thing they can learn from him.
“All I feel is that I need to affect the life of one kid — then I’ve done my job,” he said.
Team Anchors: rooter bus is full
Anchors has few options as far as treatment. The lasting effects of the radiation will not allow for a transplant or a ventricular assist device to artifullay pump his blood. But his coaches, players and their parents have rallied behind him and are hoping to raise funds so he can seek a second opinion.
“He is truly loved by his players, past and present,” said William Rippengale, whose granddaughter currently plays for Anchors, in an email to The Reflector.
Vanessa Smith has only coached with Anchors for one season but wasn’t at all surprised by his decision to continue coaching.
“He lives for softball” she said, describing him as a friend and mentor.
Before calling back after receiving a voicemail from The Reflector last week, Smith asked the team to describe Anchors during a batting practice they were holding.
Selfless, supportive, encouraging, strong, dedicated and positive were what they came up with.
