EDITOR’S NOTE: This story originally appeared in Heart of Ohio Magazine in 2013. It is being republished through a cooperative agreement with Richland Source. To read more stories on Heart of Ohio Magazine log on at www.heartofohiomagazine.com.
What former Big Ten basketball player started for Ohio State in its 1999 Final Four appearance, and then occupied the end of the bench in Michigan’s Final Four run in 2013?
You’ve likely figured out by the mere fact that you’re reading this article, it was Jon Sanderson.
That 1997 graduate of Lexington High School played his first two years of collegiate basketball for the Buckeyes and was indeed a starter on the team. They lost to eventual national champion Connecticut in that semi-final game at St. Petersburg, Florida, and later had their appearance in the NCAA title weekend scrubbed from the record books, due to violations committed by coach Jim O’Brien.
Sanderson, who was a first-team All-Ohio performer for Lexington as a senior, was a “big time” recruiting target of Division I programs in the Midwest and chose to cast his lot with Ohio State. He came in with a class that included Michael Redd, who would later go on to an injury-shortened, but nonetheless successful, NBA career. He and Jon roomed together during their two years in Columbus.
After his sophomore year, Jon transferred to Ohio University and played another couple of seasons for the Bobcats. Actually, when he left high school, he seriously considered choosing another MAC (Mid-American Conference) school, Miami of Ohio, over OSU and one of the major reasons was that he very much liked the coach who was recruiting him, Thad Matta. Yes, the current Buckeye head coach was a Miami assistant at that time.
While his collegiate basketball career was not exceptional, Jon did very well academically; completing his undergrad work in four years and getting a master’s degree in recreation and sports science, as well. That area of study was what led him to the career path he has followed since, teaching strength and conditioning.
He told me that, even in high school, he loved to spend time in the weight room; often with his friend and teammate, Mark Simmons who was bigger than Sanderson. Jon was a starter for Coach Steve Gray’s club from the time he was a freshman and stood 6’4” and weighed 165 pounds. As a sophomore, through a natural growth spurt and work with the weights, Sanderson added two inches and 20 pounds. As a junior, he stood 6’7” and tipped the scales at 205 pounds. He reported for his senior season at 6-7, 220 pounds.
Not only did Jon command an imposing presence on the basketball court, he was a well-coordinated big man who could shoot a 3-pointer with the best of them. He took that skill with him to Ohio State and still ranks among the Top 10 3-point shooters in the Buckeye record books.
After school, Sanderson decided to pursue a career as a coach; a strength and conditioning coach at a Division I program. He was fortunate to land as an intern with the University of North Carolina. He certainly didn’t take the job for the money, but the prestige of being able to include that job stop in a resume was priceless.
After two years in Chapel Hill, he moved on to Marshall University for three more seasons, and then took a job as the assistant strength coach for the men’s and women’s basketball programs at Clemson University in the Atlantic Coast Conference. During his stay there the Clemson men won 20 or more games for three straight seasons; something that had never happened before.
That must have caught the eye of someone in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and when they began looking for a replacement in the area of basketball strength and conditioning, Jon’s name was near the top of the list of those they decided to interview. He was hired on June 19, 2009. And, while it took several interviews before he was offered the job, Jon said it only took several seconds for him to open his mouth and accept.
Besides working with the men’s basketball program, Sanderson also oversees the conditioning of Michigan’s men’s and women’s golf teams. That’s a rather odd combination of athletic teams with which to work, but just as the members of the PGA spend time in the weight room, so to do the collegiate golfers. However, make no mistake, Sanderson was not hired primarily to coach the golfers; he is an important part of Head Basketball Coach John Beilein’s staff.
When a basketball recruit visits the Michigan campus, part of the tour includes a meeting with Coach Sanderson, who is more interested in the shoe size of the young man than he is in his shooting percentage. It’s things like the size of his feet, arm length and body type that tell a strength and conditioning coach what sort of a job he has in front of him when it comes to the young man’s physical development. There are a couple of other factors that are important to those who spend so much of their time in weight rooms; those are posture and the size of the young recruit’s parents.
One of his top projects since he came to Ann Arbor has been Trey Burke, the UM guard who was player of the year in the Big Ten and for all of college basketball in 2013 is now in the NBA. Burke, like Sanderson, is an Ohioan who matriculated to the Maize and Blue in that state to the north of Ohio.
When he arrived in Ann Arbor as a freshman, Burke was just a 172-pounder with a lot of quickness who had been passed over by his hometown team, OSU. He left Michigan as 190 pounds of muscle with even more quickness. If asked, he would probably credit Jon Sanderson for a good deal of his development.
Sanderson makes his home in Saline, Michigan with his wife, Jennifer, and their three children, Jonathan and twins, Joshua and Jillian. Since he is one of the few who have taken part in, not just March Madness, but the Final Four as both a player and a coach, I asked Jon which was the more memorable.
Neither Ohio State, for whom he played in 1999, nor Michigan where he coaches were able to win it all, but he told me that, “Being able to share Michigan’s run to the finals in Atlanta … with my wife and kids, as young as they are, will likely stick with me longer.”
For a young man in his 30s, Jon Sanderson has experienced a good deal of success as an athlete and a coach. The really good news is, he has decades to go in a field that is primed for growth. Besides a certified strength and conditioning specialist, Sanderson is also a certified USA weightlifting coach and a certified sports nutritionist. That all adds up to one of the stronger and healthier former Minutemen you’ll find anywhere.
