Joe Anlauf swerved out of the way as a car cut in front of him.

He and his wife, Karen, had been driving three and a half hours through a snowstorm from Hinsdale, Ill., to Madison, Wis. Now they were in the city and the Madison traffic was swirling around them while the snow came down harder than it had all day.

Frankly, it’s a trip Joe thought he might never make — to see his son Brad Anlauf suit up for Michigan basketball for a 5 p.m. tipoff against Wisconsin.

But with the snow, traffic and multitude of cars jutting into his lane, this drive is oddly synonymous with Brad’s journey to becoming a sophomore walk-on with the Wolverines.

“I was always optimistic but there were times when it seemed like he may not make his way back to basketball,” Joe Anlauf said. “But he loved it and he always kept his eye on it.”

After two and a half years as a wide receiver on the Michigan football team, Brad Anlauf now lives out a lifelong dream as a basketball walk-on with the No. 21 Wolverines. After enrolling at Michigan as a preferred football walk-on, he attended open tryouts this past fall and switched sports before football season’s end.

It’s a move Anlauf always hoped for. And although he’s logged just 12 minutes this season, he’s found a role that he can embrace.

“I never considered not going to Michigan because there were no spots,” Anlauf said. “I just waited for my opportunity and now that I’m here I’m just trying to push these guys every day.”

At Hinsdale Central High School, Anlauf was a football and basketball standout that always wanted to play basketball for the Wolverines.

But after Anlauf sent his high school tapes to Michigan head coach John Beilein, Beilein said he wasn’t taking another walk-on. The news was disappointing but it opened a different route.

“We had a great group of walk-ons and there just wasn’t any room,” Beilein said.

So instead Anlauf went to Michigan as a preferred walk-on as a wide receiver and stayed in touch with Beilein while redshirting as a freshman.

Again, Beilein wasn’t taking another walk-on and Anlauf started to settle into his role with the football team. At the start of his sophomore season, he felt he was close to earning some snaps with the progress he was making on the scout team.

But then a phone call presented a final chance.

“Beilein contacted me and told me there was an open spot,” Anlauf said, “and I just thought it had to be mine.”

When the walk-on tryouts for basketball were announced, Anlauf was relieved that they were on an off day for football. Had they not been, he said he would have never gone. Then after making the first cut, callbacks were held at night after football.

While his football teammates slowly retreated to the showers, he briskly moved to his locker, changed into basketball clothes and showed up to basketball tryouts already dripping in sweat.

It was emotionally and physically trying but it paid off.

By the weekend before Michigan football’s game against Michigan State on Nov. 2, he was on the basketball roster.

“We felt a great sense of pride when he made it,” Joe Anlauf said. “We knew it was what he wanted and I just knew how happy he was.”

Now Michigan sits atop the Big Ten and Anlauf is an integral part of its preparation.

Beilein said he is the scout team’s power forward and “does a good job guarding” Nik Stauskas and Glenn Robinson III, who lead Michigan in scoring with 18 and 13.9 points per game, respectively.

But when Anlauf isn’t as successful in practice, the basketball team doesn’t mind bringing up his past.

In a recent scrimmage Anlauf ran under an outlet pass with no one around him. Then the ball fell through his hands and bounced out of bounds before Beilein blew the whistle and his teammates mockingly asked him what position he played in football.

His answer: “I was a wide receiver, but was always a basketball player.”

Published on January 22, 2014 at 1:17 am

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse