Whether it is in the dugout at a baseball game or running a camera for football film, Grady Andersen has become a fixture of Ankeny High athletics. What started as a nudge from his parents to get out of the house turned into nearly 2,000 hours of community service—and a newfound purpose.

To earn a silver cord at graduation, students must complete 120 hours to demonstrate their dedication to service, but some students choose to go above and beyond. By the end of the baseball season, senior Grady Andersen will have allocated around 1,900 hours of community service within his four years of high school.

Andersen has created a role for himself in helping some of Ankeny’s athletic teams. He began his freshman year as the head statistician for baseball, and he added being the football head of film in his sophomore year, along with managing boys basketball before he switched to girls basketball in his junior year.

“He’s created a niche,” Andersen’s dad, Kiron Andersen, said. “He doesn’t really care what people think about him in a way that I guess I would, he’s okay being on the sidelines, and being the support, and having the responsibility to do things that allow the coaches to coach.”

Becoming the definition of dedication

It can be hard to come by people who will put their all into their passion, and with Andersen being a senior, he has been trying to show someone else the ropes of film so they can take over for him.

“Perseverance, I think, is the biggest thing,” Andersen said. “It’s a lot of knowing what you’re getting into before you get into it, because there are some days that you will hate yourself doing it. But the beauty of it is that there is always someone who will appreciate your work, no matter what.”

Some people do community service because they are looking to check off a box or add it to a college application. It would be hard to talk to Andersen without seeing the passion he holds in what he does.

“[He has] the willingness to do whatever is needed, obviously, he has a passion for activities, but a lot of people have passion for activities, and they don’t follow through on what it takes to do everything that he has done for all of our programs,” Assistant Principal Nick Nelson said. ”What’s going to make Grady successful is the grit that he has put in time over and over again, so he knows what that feels like. And a lot of students might not know what putting in that time feels like as they leave high school, so I think that he set himself apart a little bit.”

There’s a common saying, ‘Good things come to those who wait.’ Understandably, waiting can be hard after putting in so much work, luckily for Andersen, his waiting came to an end.

“Working state soccer for CISN (Central Iowa Sports Network), that was so awesome,” Andersen said. “It made me realize how much effort I had put into it, and how it was starting to pay off. It just made everything so much more fun for me.”

How it all started

Andersen has been around sports his whole life due to his dad’s job helping college athletic departments. When Andersen was in third or fourth grade, he got to travel with his dad and a junior college team to a game, and on the way there, the team noticed he was watching a World War II historical show, so they started messing with him.

“They’re like, ‘Who’s Adolf Hitler?’ You know, playing,” Andersen’s dad said. And Andersen says, “Do you know what the Treaty of Versailles is? And he basically told them the history of World War Two for the next 20 to 30 minutes on the bus, talking about battles and all kinds of stuff. And the guys, by the end, were like, ‘no mas.’”

Andersen moved to Ankeny in eighth grade, which was also when COVID stopped people from being able to build some connections. Andersen explained that after the move, he struggled mentally, and spring of his freshman year, his parents wanted him to get out of the house; some of his friends happened to be on the baseball team.

“I’ve always been really good at math, and when I originally signed on for baseball, I signed on to be the equipment manager. I didn’t know I was going to be doing anything with stats, but the freshman coach at the time, Jackson Marowitz, who I give all my credit too for setting me on this path, sort of said, ‘Hey, if you want to help with doing our scorebook, we would love that,’” Andersen said. “So I sort of just stumbled upon it while doing that. And it’s ignited a passion in me that made me want to show up, and that was hard. When we moved, that was something really hard for me to do.”

After seeing the work that Andersen did for the freshmen team, Coach Balvanz asked if he wanted to help Varsity.

“The first couple of games, a lot of the guys were really skeptical of me, because I was a new kid, and I talked like I knew everything about baseball, and I was a little bit, I was a bit unseasoned in terms of what to expect,” Andersen said. “So the first couple of games, it was really hard to build that sense of community, because a lot of people just blew me off. But after kids started to see what I was doing and what I had been doing, I was able to grow that sense of community. And luckily enough, it sort of stayed with me since then.”

Andersen got affiliated with football in a similar way when Shannon Sandvig asked if he wanted to help. Not only is he able to experience being a part of great teams he is being able to practice what he wants to do in the future.

“Because of the fact that I have stayed in this, it’s helped me discover what I want to do with the rest of my life, doing sports analytics and ultimately working in the front office of a professional sports team,” Andersen said.

Before Andersen came to Ankeny, a lot of the responsibilities that he had belonged to the coaches, but he has been able to take some of those tasks off their plates, so they are able to work directly with the players.

“It’s shown him that just because it hasn’t been done in the past doesn’t mean it can’t be done now. And if you see something and you want to try something, 98 percent of the people out there will say, ‘come on, let’s figure it out,’” Andersen’s dad said.

A leader, a teammate, and a friend

When people described Andersen, there were a lot of mentions of his intelligence, dark sense of humor, and dedication, but what stuck out most of all is how people explained that he is always there to help anyone.

“He was eating his lunch [in the production lab], as always. And I was complaining about these, photos that I was editing, about wrestling,” senior Natalie Bairamidi said. “And I was like, ‘I don’t know how to do this.’ And he was like, ‘Do you need help?’ Then, that’s how we met each other, and since then, we’re friends.”

It isn’t often that parents get to hear, from other students, the impact their kid has had on others, but with the number of people Andersen has helped, it may be a little hard to avoid. Andersen’s dad was a blackjack dealer at prom, and he explained how he mostly knows the athletes because Andersen’s been involved in sports, but other kids were also approaching him about Andersen.

“As a parent, to have an individual who doesn’t notice your first impressions of people, and he’s friendly with everyone, that’s really what you want, right? You want them to treat people nicely,” Andersen’s dad said.

Andersen, while starting with a smaller social circle in eighth grade, has not only grown his group of friends but has also portrayed himself as someone whom anyone can count on.

“He’s extremely caring and kind of an overthinker, and he will make sure that you feel comfortable in every possible way, and he will support you, and he will do anything that he can to help you,” Bairamidi said.

When students are involved in so many different activities, it’s easy to meet many different types of people, and it is up to each individual student to make the decision to be kind.

“[If] you make people around you feel good, you’re gonna feel good. And I think that’s what he’s learned overall,” Andersen’s dad said. “You can tear people down, or you can pull them up [to] air in every situation.”

Andersen has left his mark on Ankeny High School, and he has shown that there is a place for everyone. In four years, Andersen did not just track stats, he tracked what mattered most: relationships, resilience, and the ripple effect of quiet leadership.

“Mr. A told me, like a week or a couple of days ago, there were people who were excited and hoping to get my grad party invite,” Andersen said. “And to me, it just goes to show you the ability that there are people who care about you. And for me, it’s the simple fact that as long as someone needs it, as long as someone cares about it, I will attend to it, no matter what.”

This story was originally published on The Talon on May 29, 2025.