Harry Anderson rode to a Spartan victory celebration on the shoulders of his San Jose State College players after a five-game winning streak in his first year as football coach, and again after his last season. The three seasons in between were less about triumph and more about tumult for Coach Anderson, who died of Parkinson's disease at age 69 on February 28, 1997 in Capitola.

As did other American college professors after the 1967 Summer of Love, Harry Otto Anderson Jr. found himself at the center of a racial storm. The first home game of his '67 season -- against the University of Texas-El Paso -- was canceled after black students on campus threatened demonstrations at Spartan Stadium. The final game of the '68 season -- and Anderson's last as coach -- was played without the Spartans' seven black players, who refused to compete because of what they contended were racist principles of the Mormon Church and Brigham Young University.

''After we decided,'' said Frank Slaton, one of the black players, ''Harry was the first one we talked to. He said he understood.'' Slaton, who has been a track coach and teacher at Silver Creek High School for 21 years and is still in the Spartan record books as a punt returner, watched from the stands. Police officers ringed the playing field every few feet because of myriad threats. The fewer than 3,000 spectators, called the smallest crowd in 30 years, saw a game with no incidents but plenty of excitement.

The Spartans were clear underdogs, not so much because of the missing players but because BYU had defeated them, 67-8, the previous year. During a five-minute period in the third quarter, San Jose State scored 22 points, then held off a Cougar comeback to win, 25-21. After players hoisted football Professor Anderson off the field, he was exuberant. ''It's been a couple of years since I have been up in the air like that,'' he said.

The whole affair went as smoothly as it did because of Harry Anderson's grace and dignity, said Bob Bronzan, athletic director at the time. ''He could have played the role quite differently.'' Defensive back Al Saunders put another word after ''role.'' ''He had a wonderful family, great wife, children; he really was a role model. I always wanted to grow to be like Coach Anderson,'' said Saunders, now assistant head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs in the National Football League and former San Diego Chargers head coach.

Coach Anderson's teams won only 13 times against 26 losses during a time when San Jose State faculty members were instructors first, and coaching was an extracurricular activity at day's end. Nevertheless he did have some spectacular successes, said Gene Menges, longtime fellow professor who was on Anderson's coaching staff.

In 1966, the Spartans held the Cal Bears scoreless in a 24-0 trouncing, and Anderson teams beat Oregon, Arizona and Arizona State once each and longtime rival Fresno State twice during his tenure. On gaining the job in 1965, however, Professor Anderson had declared that if he didn't make a winner out of San Jose State in four seasons, he would quit. He did that toward the end of the 1968 season, saying that if he stepped down it might ''serve as a catalyst to generate the changes I feel are necessary to achieve a successful football program at San Jose.'' The winning football program that Coach Dud DeGroot had started at San Jose State in the 1930s had put an extra burden on coaches who followed, said Professor Anderson's predecessor, retired Professor Bob Titchenal: The alumni demanded winners, but the program was not financed to provide it.

Harry Anderson remained at San Jose State for 24 years more before earning the emeritus to follow his title, professor of human performance. He did so during the last 14 of them while struggling with the degenerative effects of Parkinson's disease. Diagnosed in 1979, the disease early on began to affect Professor Anderson's speech, and it prompted a team-teaching approach that inspired faculty members and students, Menges said.

In Professor Anderson's tennis course, his wife, Joan, became his partner in the classroom. She had been an elementary school teacher in Santa Cruz for many years, and she enjoyed the sport. ''At first it was driving Harry over the hill and doing the book work,'' she said, but when Professor Anderson's voice wouldn't carry to a roomful of students, she would do the classroom instruction and he would work with individuals. ''We made it fun,'' she said, ''like tourists. We stayed at a bed and breakfast a couple of nights a week,'' to avoid the trip from their Aptos home every day.

Harry Anderson coached and taught for 40 years. After graduating from South Pasadena-San Marino High School and the University of Southern California, where he was a running back on the football team, he earned a master's degree and became the first football coach for Mission Bay High near San Diego.

He had married his childhood sweetheart, Joan Hudson (SPHS '46), and began a family, all boys, all athletes. Craig today is a fencing contractor and restaurant manager in Aptos; Lance, a fire captain in Santa Cruz; Damon, a physical therapist and sports medicine business owner in Salinas; and Todd, a software applications programmer for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

Back when they were growing up, their father ran a summer day camp called ''Buckoes,'' near Del Mar in Southern California. ''It was quite a camp,'' said Lance Anderson. ''They had archery, a rifle range, swimming, Go Karts, horses, pigs, goats. I've never seen a day camp that came close to it.''

The family moved north to San Jose in 1959, when Harry began teaching at San Jose State and coached the freshman football team. Then he served as an assistant to Titchenal until taking over himself.

Wherever Todd Anderson goes, he said, he encounters San Jose State students who ask him if he knew Harry Anderson. ''He really touched a lot of people. He loved to coach. It was what he always wanted to do.''

Born: October 14, 1927, Los Angeles, California. Died: February 28, 1997, Capitola, California

Survived by: Wife, Joan Anderson of Aptos; sons, Craig of Aptos, Lance of Santa CruZ, Damon of Salinas, Todd of Rio Del Mar; five grandchildren.

San Jose Mercury News, March 8, 1997