The Rise of Nick Anderson

Nick Anderson has always had to make the most of what was given to him.

The Elks linebacker accepted the award for the CFL’s Most Outstanding Rookie on Thursday night in crowded hall in Vancouver, alongside the best that Canadian Football has to offer. The win marked the culmination of an incredible journey from a passed-over talent to a franchise cornerstone — planting Anderson’s stake as one of the CFL’s top up-and-coming talents.

Anderson joined Elks 2024 Training Camp as a bit of an unknown for fans of the Green and Gold. Edmonton had brought in an abundance of linebackers over the offseason, including CFL Draft first-overall pick Joel Dublanko, Global Draft first-overall pick Eteva Mauga-Clements, and former NFLer Aubrey Miller Jr. Yet, it was the undersized Anderson who shone through from Day 1 of Training Camp.

The Tulane product had not taken a professional snap in nearly a year, dating back to August 27, 2023 when he recorded five tackles in the NFL’s New Orleans Saints final preseason game against the Houston Texans. Anderson would end up being among the Louisiana team’s final cuts the following the game and had a football future he had worked so hard towards building thrust into doubt.

A phone call from Edmonton’s scouts and management brought him up North and out of the United States for the first time in his life. Anderson says he remembers googling Edmonton and finding out the team was the Northern most professional football team, believing he was about to visit the North Pole.



However, stepping off the plane on a 30-degree Celsius day for training camp calmed those fears pretty quickly and it was time for him to show what he could do on the larger football fields of Canada.

“I’ll never forget, the first day of training camp,” Anderson said. “The first one-on-one rep I did, I caught an interception and just felt amazing. Like, after that practice, I really wanted to cry. All my emotions were just hitting me. Man, I really missed playing a game of football. So, I just started grinding after that.”

BECOMING NICK ANDERSON

To get to know who Nick Anderson is, and why that moment meant so much to him, you have to get to know his journey as a person and a player. The Vicksburg, Mississippi native has always been a cut above in the work ethic department, a necessity for an athlete not gifted with the prototype football size. In high school, Anderson maintained a perfect 4.0 grade-point average while being named All County Defensive Player of the year. Despite is accomplishments on and off the field, it was not enough for him to earn the coveted Division I offer that would have been a given had he been born a few inches taller.

Rather than accept an offer at a lower conference, Anderson bet on himself. In 2018 he joined Jones Junior College to keep his Division 1 eligibility intact while giving scouts another look at what he could do on a football field.

“I had a couple FCS offers and a lot of people looked at me crazy when I turned those down to go to junior college, but I just bet on myself,” Anderson said. “I had a great year and received a lot of different offers from different schools.”

On a suggestion by his defensive coordinator, Anderson passed up an opportunity to join NCAA powerhouse program Ole Miss for a smaller outfit at Tulane. The University had a strong academic reputation which was an important determiner when choosing his future. Education and its importance had been drilled into him as a child by his single mother, who refused to allow him to play football if he was unable to maintain a straight-A academic standard. He didn’t never took the easy path and didn’t shy away from his academics — majoring in Homeland Security Studies at the University.`

After a solid 2020 season with the Green Wave where he racked up 88 total tackles and 3.5 sacks, he began to garner the interest of the National Football League. The temptation of a career in the NFL began to shift Anderson’s focus towards himself and his stats sheet, over the bigger picture. The next year of his life would change that focus.

DISASTER STRIKES

Hurricane Ida was the second-largest tropical storm to hit Louisiana on record, with gusts of wind hitting 240 KM/H and an estimated 75.3 billion dollars in damage caused by the fallout. The storm made landfall on August 29, 2021 – 16 years to the day that Hurricane Katrina ravaged the state.

The human cost of the storm was immense, with the lives of thousands of Louisianans being thrust into disarray and 112 people losing their lives in the wreckage. For Anderson, it was only the beginning of a season brimming with adversity.

“We ended up having a hurricane the last week of training camp in college that year,” Anderson said. “We had to evacuate to Birmingham, Alabama, and they told us we were only going to be there for a weekend. Turns out the hurricane ended up knocking out one of the power grids, so we were there for a month.”



As much as being displaced by a natural disaster pales in comparison to what many people in Louisiana were going through, it was only the first domino to fall for the linebacker.

“My third day (in Alabama), I get a phone call from home that my mom and my siblings had been in a bad car accident, and my sister was in the ICU back in Mississippi,” Anderson said. “It was tough having to deal with the hurricane and the evacuation and having to sit with the fact that I couldn’t just drop everything and get to my siblings and get to my family.”

As everything unraveled around Anderson, so did Tulane’s football season. After a 1-1 start, the Blue Wave were primed for a matchup against Ole Miss – the school which Anderson spurned in hopes of a greater opportunity.

“The third game of the season, we ended up traveling to Mississippi and playing Ole Miss,” Anderson said. “During the second half, I ended up fracturing my fibula and breaking the lower bone in my leg.”

“I finished the game and didn’t realize it was broken until after the game. I couldn’t walk on it. We had X-rays the next day. It was tough coming back to New Orleans after a month of being away. Coming back and having my leg broken, my sister fighting to get back to normal after her car accident, and then watching my team lose from the sidelines.”

Anderson only missed a month of action with his leg injury, but his return was not enough to save Tulane’s season. The Blue Wave finished the year a woeful 2-10 and well out of any consideration for the College Football Playoffs.

RIDING THE WAVE

The pain of the 2021 season still fresh, Anderson looked inward towards how he could better himself and those around him. He entered the previous year with a focus around his own personal stats and his NFL aspirations, and he wanted to do things differently in his final college season.

“I really just challenged myself going into the next year to be a leader, in any type of way I can,” Anderson said. “I put my own desires, my own passions, my own goals to the side and really just got into that team mindset of what can I do to make the team better?”

Photo Courtesy: Tulane University

At the start of the 2022 season, Anderson and the other Tulane captains presented a power point in a player’s only meeting uncovering all the warts and blemishes that helped contribute to an unacceptable year prior. It was a chance for the leaders to confront their shortcomings head on and set a standard in the building from the outset. The only goal at the end of the season was the AAC Championship game set for Dec 3.

“I told the guys in that meeting that I’m going to be acting different. Just warning you guys, but when it’s all said and done, y’all are gonna thank me,” he said. “Over this next year, a lot of you guys may not like me, but that’s the sacrifice I’m willing to make for the success of this football team.”

Anderson says that he truly began to develop as a leader that season and the Blue Wave were better for it. Guys on the team would avoid his locker at times, but there was no partying outside of football, everyone was on time to meetings, and everyone was held accountable. With a new standard set, Tulane’s fortunes turned around. The 2-10 season prior was flipped on its head into a 10-2 campaign, with big time accolades still to come. First, Tulane completed their mission from the preseason slideshow with a 45-28 victory over UCF in front of their home fans. The victory set up a date with 2022 Heisman trophy winner and future NFL first-overall pick Caleb Williams and the vaunted USC Trojans in the Cotton Bowl.

Anderson and the Blue Wave would not be denied.

Anderson plays in the Cotton Bowl against USC

What followed was a stunning comeback victory, with Anderson’s team overcoming a 45-30 deficit with 4:30 remaining in the game to capture the Cotton Bowl by a 46-45 score. From a nightmare season to an absolute dream, the complete buy-in by Anderson and his group led to a moment bigger than themselves. The victory in front of over 55,000 people was about as storybook an ending for a College career that began out of an unassuming Junior College.

THE NEXT CHAPTER

Football has a way of humbling you sometimes.

Anderson would go undrafted in the 2023 NFL Draft, subsequently signing with New Orleans Saints – a team his grandfather cheered for and one close to his family. However, the ‘yes, but’ in Anderson’s game reared its ugly head at the conclusion of training camp.

Yes Nick made the plays, but his size doesn’t fit the prototype.

Nick Anderson celebrates a play against the Saskatchewan Roughriders

Anderson was cut and his football future was very much up in the air. The USFL/XFL merger reduced the available roster spots in the United States by half, leaving the talented linebacker without a place in his home country to land. The linebacker’s agent, alongside some EE scouts, convinced the Mississippi kid who had never travelled outside of the United States to come to Canada and give the CFL shot.

What followed was a rookie season for the ages. His 111 defensive tackles led all of Canadian Football, marking the second most by a rookie in the history of the league. Anderson’s first year ranks as the sixth most productive season by any Double E defender since tackles were recorded as a statistic.

His ability on the field shines through. Watching Anderson launch himself at opponents like a speeding missile is an impressive feat for the ‘undersized’ linebacker (as undersized as you can be at 240 lbs.). Now that he has officially become the fifth member of the club to capture the CFL’s Most Outstanding Rookie award, he can look back at what he was truly able to accomplish as a first-year player in a league with a storied history.

“I haven’t been able to fathom what I’ve done statistically this year because I’ve always been a guy that’s been so focused on what’s ahead,” Anderson. “It’s a blessing to just be given the opportunity. I’m grateful.”

“A lot of people have asked me are you proud of what you did? I’m not proud of what I did. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have done what I did. I understand that this game is a gift. I understand what it’s like not to play this game. I understand what it’s like to sit at home and wish that you just had one more play, wish that you had one more opportunity, wish that you could put your mouthpiece in one more time, strap your pads on one more time. Playing this season was a gift to me.”



The sky is the limit for the All-CFL rookie. Right now he is just savoring the moment with the people who mean the most to him. Anderson accepted the award for CFL’s Most Outstanding Rookie in Vancouver, in front of the person who had instilled the work ethic that helped him battle through adversity and achieve so much in his young career.

“My mom is my biggest inspiration. That’s like my best friend. I tell everybody she’s my biggest motivator and also one of my biggest critics,” Anderson said. “To have her in the stands and be able to have her in person while I receive such a great award just meant the most to me because I know it meant the most to her.”