Lauren Anderson was the New England cross country coach of the year in 1987, the New England outdoor track coach of the year in 1990 and the URI coach of the year in 1991.

The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

SOUTH KINGSTOWN —– She served under three presidents and eight athletics directors and helped manage a department that became one of the finest in its conference.

She coached and mentored more than 1,000 athletes and befriended dozens of colleagues.

She received local, state, regional and national recognition.

Now, after 31 years — 41 counting her experience in Connecticut — she has moved on to the next phase of her life.

Lauren Anderson, senior associate director of athletics and senior woman administrator at the University of Rhode Island, retired June 20, ending a tenure that started in 1977 when Ellie Lemaire, then an associate AD, hired her as URI’s first full-time head coach of women’s cross country and track.

Anderson, 62, was planning to retire at some point this year, and the $20,000 incentive the state offered eligible employees influenced her timing, not her decision.

“My time had come in my own mind,” she said on her last morning. “I’m at a good age, an age that I felt I should finish my career.”

Only two personal items remained in her modest office in the Mackal Field House: a print of a sailboat and a poster from the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. She had shipped her papers to the URI library and had removed the rest of her belongings over the previous few weeks. NCAA and Atlantic 10 Conference policy manuals and plaques honoring various champions of yesteryear would remain.

During a 90-minute chat, Anderson caught herself a few times so she wouldn’t weep; she was mostly upbeat and excited about her future and that of URI.

“I have my health and lots of things on my to-do list,” she said with a smile. “I’m excited about being spontaneous. I can go out and cut the grass even though it’s Monday. I can do that. I’m free! I’m the keeper of the master calendar here, and I look forward to managing my own calendar.”

After a pause, she added, “I’m really excited, but I’ll miss the people here and my job.”

Anderson was a teacher and coach at North Haven High School in Connecticut before coming to URI. Her girls track team won four state championships from 1972 through 1975, and she also coached basketball and field hockey. Lemaire was looking for a basketball coach as well as a track coach in 1977 and gave Anderson her choice.

“I had started the track program at North Haven, so I started it here. I think track is an interesting sport because you have the jumpers, the throwers, the distance people. It’s really nonstop for three seasons. You’re coaching all year long, and there’s a lot of planning of workouts and strength and conditioning.”

Anderson was the New England cross country coach of the year in 1987, the New England outdoor track coach of the year in 1990 and the URI coach of the year in 1991. When Lemaire retired in 1992, Anderson removed her coach’s whistle and joined the administration as associate director of athletics and senior woman administrator.

She was promoted to senior associate in 2003. Her duties included coordinating and supervising intercollegiate sports, the athletic training staff, academic advisers and operations staff.

“It’s a great job, but you have to love it from the inside with your heart and soul. You have to have a passion for it,” she said.

Anderson relished the pace and the challenges and the fact that “every day was different.” As a coach she enjoyed teaching her track athletes and found it “rewarding to see them grow.” As an administrator she “felt like I’m coaching the coaches . . . trying to make their jobs easier.”

Several of her former athletes attended a retirement party on June 17.

“It was so much fun,” Anderson said. “I remember each and every one of them. I can still see them in their events.”

Frank Newman was president when Anderson joined the URI staff, and she remembered him as a “great gentleman who was visible on campus and sent notes when you did well in your season.” Ted Eddy succeeded him and was “a very good-natured person and leader.” Bob Carothers, the incumbent since 1991, has been “a very strong university leader … not afraid of being in front of new policy and creating a new culture for learning … made great changes and helped the university keep up with changes in society.”

Maurice Zarchen was the athletics director when Anderson signed on as track coach. He was “a classy gentleman and really wanted everything that surrounded the athletics department to be in good order and look great. He walked the grounds every morning and made sure there was no grass growing in the cracks and that the fields looked great.”

Zarchen’s successor, John Chuckran, came from Penn State and was “a nice man.” McKinley Boston came from Kean College in New Jersey and was “a big man, a football player, who was more visible around the department and seeing teams.”

Ron Petro arrived from the University of Alaska in 1991 and within a year gave Anderson a chance to move to administration from coaching.

“He mentored me. He trusted me. We grew together. He was a hands-on AD. He knew the details of the department.”

Tom McElroy followed Petro in 2004 and experienced a brief and controversial tenure before taking an extended leave, reaching a contract settlement and resigning in 2006. The reasons for his departure were never disclosed, and neither he nor Carothers has discussed the case publicly. There were suggestions that Anderson was using her friendship with the president’s wife, Jayne E. Richmond, a URI dean, to have McElroy removed.

“That was not the case,” Anderson said. “I am not a troublemaker, and the president makes his own decisions. Jayne Richmond is a friend of mine, as are hundreds of people. I don’t think that had anything to do with Tom McElroy being here or not being here.”

Anderson said that “people in general kind of dictate their own destiny. They manage things the way they want to manage them, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Thorr Bjorn came aboard last summer.

“He’s a person who understands and relates to people in a very sincere way. His management style is transparent. He will grow. He is putting things in place and letting people do their job. He is giving everyone a role to play and making them feel important about that role. He has a character and leadership style that make people want to follow him. He will succeed here. When he reaches out, he has an excitement about URI, and people need to hear that. It’s fun to work for him.”

Tom Dougan, vice president for student affairs, and Gregg Burke, deputy athletics director, served as interim or acting directors.

Anderson never pursued the top job in the athletics department because she did not want to move from her family homestead in Eastford, Conn., 58 miles from Kingston. She made that roundtrip every day.

“I always knew I could do the job and do it well, (but) I couldn’t commit to late nights every night and every weekend all the time. I decided that I’m OK right where I am; I like doing what I’m doing; I like being with the coaches; I like being in the trenches.”

Anderson witnessed and influenced numerous changes at URI in the last three decades, especially in women’s athletics.

“I do marvel at all the things they have now,” she said.

And despite URI’s eliminating gymnastics and field hockey, plus men’s tennis and men’s swimming, because of the current budget crisis, she is optimistic about the future. She believes that as Bjorn tells the URI story and “people get to know how good we are and how hard we work . . . when people hear your story and it’s a true story, they want to get behind you.”

She will continue to support the Rams, catching games here and there and watching the A-10 championship women’s crew racing in the shell named for her. After 41 years on the athletics sidelines and in the administrative trenches, Lauren Anderson is looking forward “to being a spectator.”

mszostak@projo.com