{"id":1379,"date":"2022-07-13T18:59:26","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T18:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/branfordsportshalloffame.com\/?post_type=inductee&p=1379"},"modified":"2022-07-13T18:59:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T18:59:53","slug":"peter-j-anderson","status":"publish","type":"inductee","link":"https:\/\/branfordsportshalloffame.com\/inductee\/peter-j-anderson\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter J. Anderson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cA leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don\u2019t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

First Lady, Rosalynn Carter<\/p>\n

Wife of 39th United States President Jimmy Carter<\/p>\n

1977-1981<\/p>\n

This well-known humanitarian may not have 2008 Branford Sports Hall of Fame inductee Peter J. Anderson in mind when she spoke these words but the sentiments clearly are appropriate for this tw0-sport athlete, outstanding businessman, and loving family man.<\/p>\n

Born on June 4, 1948 in Branford, Peter attended Branford High School, graduating in 1966, where he was a stellar football player and a key member of the track team.\u00a0 During the 1962 season, Branford enjoyed a 6-2-1 record, defeating Derby (14-6), Shelton (10-6), Lyman Hall (36-0), North Haven (8-6), Cheshire (52-12), and Seymour (16-0).\u00a0 The Hornets also tied Amity that year (0-0).\u00a0 In Peter\u2019s sophomore season, the Hornets football team posted a 6-3 season, besting the likes of Derby (8-0), Shelton (22-6), Lyman Hall (36-0), Seymour (26-12), West Haven (8-0), and East Haven (14-0).\u00a0 Tonight\u2019s inductee was team captain in his senior year and earned All-Housatonic League honors as an end.\u00a0\u00a0 He received recognition as the New Haven Register Player of the Week for his outstanding performance in Branford\u2019s 32-12 win over North Haven during the 1965 season.<\/p>\n

Peter played alongside many fellow Branford Sports Hall of Fame inductees including:\u00a0 Bob Tobin (1996), Edward \u201cLeon\u201d Brazzell (1999), Joe Roberti (1999),\u00a0 Bruce Johnson (2000),\u00a0 Alfred \u201cAllie\u201d B. Aguzzi,\u00a0 Jr. (2002), Dennis Swirsky (2002),\u00a0 Vincent Giordano, Jr. (2003), George Lepre, Jr. (2003),\u00a0 Bob (T.O.) Tokarczyk (2003), Donald B. Lawrence (2002),\u00a0 and\u00a0 Paul Criscuolo (2006).\u00a0 Among his high school coaches were Dominic Cote (1992) and Tom Murray (1992).<\/p>\n

Peter was also a member of the BHS track squad where he excelled in the field events and was\u00a0 class president for\u00a0 four years. In addition to athletics, he served on the Branford High School Student Council, and was voted \u201cDid Most for The Class\u201d by his senior classmates.\u00a0 After graduation, he attended the University of Vermont on a football scholarship, playing all four years and graduated in 1971 with a degree in Business.\u00a0 After Peter\u2019s graduation from UVM and his marriage to the former Deborah Hawthorne of Branford, on March 27, 1971, he started a small business from the basement of his apartment in Branford in 1974. Known as USI Inc., Peter\u2019s fledging laminating business developed into a large international company with locations in Connecticut, and Arizona and overseas operations in China.<\/p>\n

Peter was proud of his successful business ventures but even more proud of his family.\u00a0 He was happily married to Deborah for 27 years until his untimely death in October of 1998.\u00a0 The Andersons had three sons, Michael, Daniel, and Christian, all of whom followed tonight\u2019s inductee in the sports arena. Michael played football for Union College from which he graduated in 1999. Daniel attended Dartmouth College where he started as a fullback and graduated in 2002, and Christian, went west to the University of Denver on a lacrosse scholarship and graduated in 2005.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1380,"template":"","acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/branfordsportshalloffame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductee\/1379"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/branfordsportshalloffame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductee"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/branfordsportshalloffame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/inductee"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/branfordsportshalloffame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/branfordsportshalloffame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}