When Tim Anderson first got into coaching basketball at Oklahoma Panhandle State he wasn’t paid well enough to make ends meet with just the one job, so when the school’s president approached him about being a police officer in the small town of Goodwell, Oklahoma he thought it might be a good opportunity to make some extra money.

What Anderson didn’t know is that as a police officer in Goodwell he wasn’t going to be able to speed through red lights and park on the wrong side of the street. There’s no preferential treatment for officers in Goodwell. After being ticketed twice for such behavior, Anderson was told that they do things the “right way” in Oklahoma, and it sparked a new passion in his life.

Growing up in Chicago, Anderson wasn’t ever afraid of police officers. He remembers walking past the police station with his mother and her saying that ‘he’d better be good before the police get you.’ What Anderson didn’t understand about that was that he wasn’t doing anything wrong, so there wasn’t a reason for the police to “get him.”

When Anderson moved back to Chicago in 2007 to help care for his sick grandmother his career in law enforcement stopped. However, his coaching career was on the doorstep of taking off.

Anderson spent three seasons at Crane High School, leading the Cougars to a combined 63-24 record and IHSA Super-Sectionals appearance in 2011. Around the same time, Anderson founded Ground Zero Training, his own training company for basketball players of all skill levels.

But while Anderson’s basketball coaching career continued to take off, he still felt a call towards that other passion of his – finding a way to make a difference in his community. To do that, Anderson founded the Reign Project in Chicago, a “community-based organization whose purpose is to make a positive change in our communities that are underfunded and (forgotten) about. We believe everyone deserves the same opportunities regardless of race, living situations and income. Through advocacy and outreach activities, our team works tirelessly each day to contribute their part to the greater good.”

Anderson was prepared to step away from coaching this offseason to focus more time on his efforts to prevent violence in his Chicago neighborhood – a place he admits he never really wants to leave. But when he got a call from Brad Underwood about joining the Illinois coaching his wife urged him to be selfish and take the position with the Illini.

“Obviously, I wouldn’t be truthful if I said I wasn’t eyeing an opportunity to join his staff,” Anderson said on Wednesday in a Zoom press conference. “When the opportunity came, I just couldn’t pass it up. I was willing to take a year or two off and not be involved with the game because there are things I have going on in the community that I want to be at the forefront of and to help curve violence and stuff like that.”

Being an assistant college basketball coach is something that takes a lot of time. Anderson understands that he isn’t going to be able to spend as much time with the Reign Project as he was previously planning to, that’s why taking the position at Illinois required some nudging from his wife.

“The violence where I’m from is ramping up,” Anderson said. “I’ve never wanted to leave the hood where I’m from. I’ve always wanted to make the hood a better place. For me, being integral and vocal in the community and creating job opportunities for people in the community it’s really, really near and dear to me.

“It’s a lot of different things that go into violence. People don’t just wake up and think ‘I’m going to do something bad today’. It’s homelessness. It’s jobs. It’s lack of job training. It’s a lot of things that go into it, mental health. There are so many different entities that go into it that people don’t understand.”

Anderson isn’t shy about mistakes he has made in the past. He admits that he has thrown garbage out of the window of his car in the past but is now he is trying to set an example for young kids by picking up litter and throwing it away, he said. It’s all part of his plan to change the perception that people have of different things, including police officers.

“I never want people to look at the police and be scared,” Anderson said. “I want people to have a relationship with the police because that’s their job is to serve and protect. The way I grew up, there was police who were 60 years old that I grew up and talked to and still talk to. I wasn’t scared of them because I wasn’t doing anything wrong. But the perception is so bad now, and I want to change the perception. If you’re not doing anything you shouldn’t be scared.”

Even though Anderson’s new home is about 2.5 hours south of Chicago, he still wants to continue to put his time towards the Reign Project, and helping people in his neighborhood city. Anderson may not be a police officer anymore, but he’s still trying to change the structure.

“This really, really something that I want to continue to push forward because you may not be able to change the whole structure but if you can give people an opportunity and them a different outlet, maybe they will try to do right.”