'He was in amazing shape': Central Catholic, cycling community remember Bob Anderson (2024)

Robert “Bob” Anderson gave 110% on everything he did.

The North Hills man displayed the same passion for teaching physical education at Central Catholic High School as he did for biking in national competitions or just around the trails of Allegheny County’s nine parks. Fiercely dedicated to fitness and a healthy diet, he was 63 but looked 20 years younger, his peers said.

“He was tenacious,” said Barry Jeffries, 62, of Penn Hills, a fellow bicyclist and former bike-shop owner who met Anderson 40 years ago. “I don’t know what the right word is but he was always chasing for the lead. He was always trying to take it to the top.”

Anderson was riding his bike on a North Park trail on Tuesday when he was killed after coming into contact with power lines that a storm had downed a day earlier. Officials said he was electrocuted.

Anderson, who lived in Mars, taught physical education and health classes at Central Catholic, a private school in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood, for 19 years, school officials said. His family was not available for comment.

“Anderson was dedicated to the students entrusted to his care and the mission of Central Catholic,” said Central Catholic High School President Matthew J. Stoessel, an alum who graduated from the high school in 1995. “Everyone who knew him mourns his passing, as he was an integral member of our school’s community.”

Incident in North Park

First responders pronounced Anderson dead just before 11 p.m. on the trail. A jogger who found the bicyclist called 911 at about 8:20 p.m. It took Duquesne Light more than two hours to cut electricity to the downed lines so paramedics could reach him.

Allegheny County Police said they became aware of the live wires at 8:40 a.m. — about 12 hours before the jogger’s 911 call. County officials said they notified utility provider Duquesne Light 11 minutes after hearing about them.

Duquesne Light would not answer phone calls Thursday about the 12-hour delay.

“Duquesne Light has received hundreds of downed wire reports across our service territory,” spokeswoman Ashley Macik said in a prepared statement Wednesday night. “Safety hazards are our first priority when it comes to response and restoration, and we prioritize each of these reports according to risks to public safety, among other factors.”

A Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission spokesman confirmed to TribLive on Wednesday that the agency’s safety division is investigating “the cause and circ*mstances surrounding the downed power line and the utility’s handling of the situation.”

He declined further comment.

‘He was always training’

Barry Jeffries and Bob Anderson bonded over mountain biking.

Jeffries doesn’t remember the first time the pair met each other in the early 1980s. From the beginning, Anderson always was just a strong presence in the bike community.

“He’s just one of those guys: you’re not going to find anyone to say anything bad about him,” Jeffries said. “Cycling, to Bob and to people of that nature, it’s not just one aspect. It’s a lifestyle.”

Jeffries took an interesting route to find that lifestyle.

More than 40 years ago, he competed nationally in racing off-road, two-wheel motorcycles, netting class wins in GNCC, or Grand National Cross-Country, races in 1982 and 1984. One off-road course took him from Florida to Minnesota.

Jeffries turned to mountain biking as a means of training — it was a highly physical form of riding and provided a great workout, he said. Around that same time, he opened Dirty Harry’s, a bike shop he operated in Verona from 1980 to 2022. Anderson was a loyal customer at Dirty Harry’s — and became a close friend.

The pair rode together and in groups in North Park; Boyce Park, the closest to Jeffries’ Penn Hills home, was another favorite spot. They also rode the trails of Moraine State Park, a 16,725-acre biker’s paradise in Butler County.

From the get-go, Jeffries said Anderson liked buying — and riding — very high-end bike models.

“Always the state-of-the-art whatever,” Jeffries said. “He wanted the newest stuff that was out there.”

Bluetooth capabilities, hydraulic brakes, bike frames composed of titanium fibers: Anderson had them all.

“We were mountain bikers, we were road cyclists, we were gravel guys,” Jeffries said. “Bob, he was always training, he never went slow. That was his personality. If you didn’t want to go fast, you didn’t go with Bob.”

Anderson also never left behind his drive to compete.

In June 2013, at age 52, Anderson ran alongside 540 Pittsburghers in the 2013 Rachel Carson “Full Challenge,” a 37-mile-long endurance hike that started at sunrise in North Park and ended at dusk in Harrison Hills Park.

The runners had 15 hours, 4 minutes to complete the trail by sunset — 8:54 p.m. that day, the group said. About 71% of them did it.

Anderson, though, was the first across the finish line, clocking in at 7 hours, 13 minutes. The second-place runner — a Pittsburgh man 19 years younger than Anderson — was a full 20 minutes behind him.

In just 18 days this month, Anderson logged more than 223 miles on his bike, according to an online tracker. On Saturday, he trekked to Washington County’s Hillman State Park and covered 11 miles of trails in the Bavington Bike the Wilds series.

Mike Schultz doesn’t remember the first time he met Anderson. But, he remembers the bond over cycling and fitness they formed during a friendship that stretched nearly 20 years.

“Bob was really intense and I get along with people who are really intense,” said Schultz, 50, who grew up on Pittsburgh’s North Side and today lives in Ross. “He was easy to talk to, and would give you the shirt off his back.”

Anderson recommended Schultz turn his love of cycling into a business and pushed him to get a CSCS — or Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialists — certification.

After getting the CSCS, Schultz started the coaching business Highland Training 16 years ago. Anderson, then in his late 40s, became a client.

“He was fast,” Schultz laughed. “He kept fit every day of the week.”

A teacher

That intensity carried over into the classroom, according to those who taught alongside Anderson at Central Catholic High School.

“He had a lot of bark but also was really, really kind and really, really generous,” said Todd Rooney, 51, of Shaler, who started teaching English at Central Catholic 17 years ago. “He really practiced what he preached and was eager to pass that along to his students, the idea that fitness is a lifelong thing.”

Rooney has worked with many teachers during a 30-year career that also included nearly a decade of teaching English in the Pine-Richland School District.

On Thursday, he painted a picture of Andersons through the tiny details.

Anderson glowed when sitting in the teacher’s lounge and talking about the Tour de France, Rooney said. Some fans might have talked about the competition or headline-generating celebrities like Lance Armstrong. Anderson was strictly into the makes and models of the bikes the cyclists were riding.

Then there was this drink — a health-minded, green concoction that Rooney said looked like algae.

“He swore by it,” Rooney laughed. “He had to have done something right because he was in amazing shape.”

Charlotte Starkowitz — who was Charlotte Kenrick when teaching Spanish at Central Catholic from 2003 to 2017 — saw Anderson’s intensity come shining through when she’d work lunch duty with him.

“He was always the one you’d want to get paired with because he took his job seriously,” said Starkowitz, 45, who today lives in Wheeling, W. Va. “He was a gentleman but also a consummate professional. He talked the talk but he walked the walk, too. He was the epitome of fitness and health. You’ve got to admire that. He really believed in what he was teaching.”

“He definitely made Central Catholic a better place,” she added.

Tributes to Anderson poured out onto social media this week.

“The cycling accident that happened in North Park last night - on the very trails that Bob loved so much — is nothing short of tragic,” The Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy, a nonprofit advocate for hiking, biking and walking trails in western Pennsylvania, posted to Facebook. “Bob was a TREMENDOUS athlete. In addition to being an amazing mountain biker, he could do some serious running and hiking.”

“He was a force,” the group added.

“Mr. Anderson lived and breathed fitness and wellness — he challenged students to go beyond their limits in PE and was a great role model that impacted every Viking who had the privilege of knowing him,” Shane Ficorilli, who graduated from Central Catholic High School with a 4.0 grade point average in 2011, wrote online.

“The Central Catholic community, and the world, are lesser places without him.”