He Sounds Like Good Catch for Dolphins : Flipper Anderson Has a Name for the Pros and the Speed for UCLA

When UCLA recruited him, he was Flipper Anderson, high school All-American wide receiver--quarterback his senior year--and defensive back from Paulsboro, N.J.

Now, as a sophomore filling in at split end for the injured Mike Sherrard, he’s just plain Willie Anderson on the roster. Maybe he’ll be Flipper again when he regains star status, which could be sooner than he thinks.

In the only game that he has started for the Bruins, at Stanford last Saturday, Anderson caught 5 passes for 100 yards. His big play at Stanford was a catch that was good for 51 yards and a touchdown. Against Arizona State, after Sherrard had set the school record for receiving yardage and had broken his collarbone, Anderson had a 54-yard touchdown catch. His first catch for the Bruins was a 25-yard scoring catch at Tennessee.

So far he has caught 7 passes for 179 yards and 3 touchdowns. He’s the team’s third-leading receiver behind Sherrard and flanker Karl Dorrell.

“We expect big things from Flipper,” UCLA Coach Terry Donahue said. “He hasn’t played much for us because of Sherrard, but now that he’s getting some time, he’ll gain in confidence with each game.”

Not that Anderson was ever really lacking in confidence. It’s just that experience and confidence are the only areas that may take some time to develop as he makes the transition to the major college level.

Anderson certainly has the speed to replace Sherrard. He and Sherrard tied as the fastest players on the team with a time of 4.37 seconds for 40 yards.

He apparently has the athletic skills needed. In high school, he played football and basketball and ran the sprints and competed in both the long jump and high jump. He can jump 36 1/2 inches vertically. As a senior, he was moved from wide receiver to quarterback not for his good but for the good of the team. The coach needed his best athlete at quarterback.

And he can catch the ball. As a high school junior, he had 51 receptions and 7 interceptions.

“I think I need to work on my confidence for catching the ball in a crowd, and I need some experience to learn how to get open for the shorter passes over the middle,” Anderson said.

“I have some more to learn about how to find an open space. Mike is great at that, and he’s been trying to give me some help on it, but I think it’s mostly instinct. It takes some time. Coach (Homer) Smith has been working with us on finding the open areas between the linebackers.”

The long balls are no problem. Anderson is a good bet to win any foot race in the open field. “The long touchdown catches are special, of course,” he said. “They give me a chance to display my speed a little bit.”

That’s about as close to bragging as Anderson gets. He’s soft-spoken and admits, with apology, that he is shy. And he considers Sherrard a good friend and mentor--not an obstacle standing between him and great stats.

“I was thinking that this season I might get my foot in the door a little bit, but I didn’t expect to play much behind Mike,” Anderson said. “I thought that next year I would start to get some experience. I was hoping to be a good replacement next year--not as good as Mike, of course--but a good receiver.”

Sherrard was at the game at Stanford and spent a lot of time standing around outside the locker room afterward, telling everyone who asked that he had absolute confidence in Anderson.

Stanford’s secondary had already figured that out.

“I think we might be surprising a lot of teams,” Anderson said. “Our team is pretty deep, not just with the receivers but with the running backs and some other positions. . . . When Mike went out, I think it put more pressure on Karl (Dorrell, the flanker) more than me. They probably thought they could relax a little on me because they wouldn’t expect too much out of me.”

By now, though, the word must be out, because Anderson is beginning to live up to the expectations set for him when he was recruited.

Anderson visited UCLA, Georgia, Penn State, Notre Dame and Michigan. “I came to UCLA first, in December (of 1982) while UCLA was preparing for the Rose Bowl game,” he said. “When I left New Jersey, there was snow everywhere. When I got here, it was about 70 degrees and sunny. I knew, then, that this was the place for me.”

UCLA’s coaches listed him as one of their biggest prizes that year. But, then, he redshirted his first year. The Bruins still had Mike Young then, besides Sherrard and Dorrell. Last season, as a redshirt freshman, Anderson returned kickoffs but did not catch a pass.

“I went through all the usual doubts, but now I can see that it was best for me,” Anderson said.

At least he didn’t quit and go home to New Jersey.

Anderson was born in Philadelphia, but he grew up in New Jersey, living most of the time with his grandparents. He’s an only child, but he grew up with nine other kids. “I didn’t have brothers, but I had uncles,” he said. “There was nothing lonely about it.”

None of those uncles was dubbed Flipper, though. That nickname came from his first baby sitter, Mamma Pearl. “She said that when my mother dropped me off, I would cry like a dolphin,” Anderson said. “She started calling me Flipper. It did become my favorite (TV) show, because it was my nickname, but everyone thinks it probably happened the other way around.

“Now I have toy dolphins and pictures of dolphins in my room. People always give them to me.

“I was called Flipper all through junior high school and high school because once, in the seventh grade, we had a substitute teacher who knew me and called me that. Until seventh grade, they called me Lee at school.”

His full name is Willie Lee Anderson Jr.

So, considering that long name and that long story, what does he most like to be called?

He said, “Let’s make it Willie (Flipper) Anderson.”

Bruin Notes A correction: It was erroneously reported here Tuesday that UCLA linebacker Ken Norton was the Pacific 10 defensive player of the week and defensive tackle Mark Walen was the team’s defensive player of the week. Norton was the team player of the week and Walen was the conference player of the week.