Longtime state-championship winning Hamilton basketball coach Ted Anderson dies at 77

Longtime Memphis high school basketball coach Ted Anderson has died at age 77, according to Hamilton coach Eric "Cowboy" Robinson. 

Anderson retired in 2016 with 518 wins over 38 years of coaching. All but 10 of those years were at his alma mater, Hamilton, where he won a state title in 1991. 

"Coach A was Mr. Hamilton. He was a legend," Robinson said. "He touched almost every person's lives who went there and still touches lives now, because the majority of kids who go there now their parents knew of Coach A. He cared about every player that came through his program. He just loved them like they were his own."

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Robinson, who played on the 1991 title team, said seeing Anderson celebrating the win is a lasting memory.  He said he plans on dedicating the Wildcats' season to Anderson, who was like a father figure to him. 

"He actually gave me my nickname," Robinson said. "When I first got to Hamilton, I was a gunslinger and I was bowlegged like I just got off a horse. I could shoot, so that's where the name came from." 

After leaving Hamilton, Anderson had a brief stop at Ridgeway Middle before coaching at Douglass for eight seasons. He ended his career as one of the winningest coaches in Shelby County history.