Two close friends from Mt. Carmel, Ill., told him about the high school girls’ basketball phenom.
When Dees, now 79 years old, got the chance to make the 110-mile trip from Bloomington back to his high school stomping grounds, he knew immediately what he saw was ?special.
“She scored 40, 50 points a game,” Dees said. “Stop and think about that for a minute. I don’t care if you’re playing mumblepeg, that’s a lot of points.”
Dees’ reaction to Buss is the same she has received from the entire town of Mt. Carmel. The now-IU freshman guard set Illinois high school records in several scoring categories, including a 45.8-point per game average her senior season. She went on to set the all-time career scoring record with 4,897 points.
Dees cheered from afar.
With the exception of his five-year professional career, he has lived in Bloomington since attending IU in 1955. Then-IU Coach Branch McCracken promised Dees if he came to IU, he’d be an All-American. And he was. Dees was also a two-time Big Ten Conference MVP his junior and senior seasons.
Dees started an insurance business in Bloomington. He married his wife, Sandy, and had three kids here, two sons and a daughter.
Sixty years after Dees set the Illinois high school scoring record, he heard from Bloomington that Tyra Buss had set one herself.
He never thought his Mt. Carmel record would be broken by a girl — her 40-plus points per game were twice what he scored, Dees said. That brought a smile to his face.
“She did it in style,” he said.
Buss always knew about Archie Dees. Though he grew up in a small town in Mississippi, Dees’ basketball career took off when his dad moved the family to Mt. Carmel. He became a town legend.
When Buss moved to Bloomington last summer, she got to meet Dees for the first time.
The two formed an immediate friendship. Now, Buss visits him as often as she can, she said, usually on game days. Dees had a plaque made for Buss with their high school scoring careers — and a picture of each of them — side by side.
“He’s just a great guy to go to,” she said. “He listens to me. He gives me advice. He knows what it’s like to play in the Big Ten, and he knows what it takes to be a student-athlete.”
With the last couple of weeks of the season approaching, Buss has started every game as a freshman, averaging 11.4 points per game while also making a difference on defense with 58 steals, the most for a freshman in the ?Big Ten.
She never has a shortage of fans at home games. Buss chose to attend IU in part so her parents wouldn’t have too far to travel to see her play. As it turned out, that was a plus for the whole town. Her fans aren’t just relatives. They’re former elementary school teachers. They’re young girls who aspire to be like her.
After every game, Buss is the last to leave the court because of the mass of fans swarming for her autograph.
Dees can’t always make it to Assembly Hall. That hasn’t kept him from watching every one of Tyra’s games this ?season.
“I got an iPad, and I get all her games on there,” Dees said. “There’s not been one game she’s played in that I didn’t see.”
Dees watches and supports Buss not because of how she plays the game, he said, but who she is. In his room, Dees has two displays on the wall. One is a giant frame with pictures of friends and family.
Next to it, a poster of Tyra with an IU hat hanging ?above it.
“I’ve never met a finer little girl than her,” Dees said. “It’s not an act. That’s just the way she is.”
Dees was able to make it to one game this season.
He can’t remember which one it was, but he remembers sitting under the basket. And when the game was over, he was one of the many waiting to see Buss.
“Mt. Carmel’s a funny little town,” Dees said. “They’re all very proud of the people that go through there. I happen to be one of the proudest, ?I guess."
An earlier version of this story referred to Archie Dees' wife as Lori.
