The "Big Due" is now the "Winningest Due."

 

Indianola native, Richard Duease, eclipsed the state record for boys' basketball wins this past season. He finished the year with another state title (six in a row) and 1,701 wins (32-7 this season) eclipsing Norris Ashley, who won 1,697 games at Coahoma County and Ingomar from 1969-2012.

 

The Indianola Academy grad (1970), MDCC and MS State alum put in 45 years of coaching from Manchester Academy to Lee Academy and then at Madison Ridgeland Academy. Sunflower County made a huge impression on Duease and grounded him firmly in athletics and how to compete and how to coach. 

 

"I grew up in Indianola and my mother, Ina Duease, had a store there – Johnny's Department Store. My dad (John) had one in Belzoni, Johnny's Army Store and my brother Johnny ran that store when my momma retired. I played all sports there and had a great time as a young man growing up in Indianola at that time. There was nothing like it," Duease said.  

 

Of the record-setting career, the humble coach deflected his success, "It took a long time (laughing) but I'm glad it's over. I've been doing this 45 years (the last 38 at MRA). This record isn't about me, it's about the boys and girls I've coached and the coaches that have helped me over the years. It's a team deal. They are just as much a part of this as I am. Hopefully, the Lord has a few more years for me."

 

At Indianola High School and then Indianola Academy, Duease was coached by legends Charlie Wright in basketball and Bill McGuire in football. It was McGuire who made the biggest impression on him as a player that molded his coaching career. 

 

"He's why I got in coaching," Coach Duease said of Coach McGuire. "He was different. He was tough and very outgoing. He made me feel important. He made a lot of guys feel important but he made a lot of guys feel not so important. I think the key in coaching is that everybody doesn't get treated the same. Not everybody can handle a 'tail chewing.' You have to recognize that early and you have to know how to motivate them. That's something he did early and I tried to learn from him. Even to this day I'll talk to him and visit and he knows how I feel about him."

Coach McGuire recognized his talent early on.

 

"He had a lot of confidence himself and he was a great athlete. He didn't look like one but he was a heck of an athlete," Coach McGuire said. "He was a great basketball player, good baseball player and a durn good quarterback. He was my first quarterback as a head coach at Indianola High School. We named him 'Big Due'. He had an air of confidence about him and he had that smile. He got it done. If I had any influence on him becoming a coach, it was because he saw and understood how much I cared for it. Buddy, he's done the same thing – plus. You've got to put yourself completely in it to be successful."

Big Due's other athletic influence was his older brother, Johnny.

 

"My dad was an older guy so my brother was the guy who really trained me to play all sports," he said. "When Johnny was a senior in high school, I was the manager and in the fifth grade. It was all win, you had to win. When they lost, I probably got more upset than they did."

 

At Lee Academy, Duease coached girls' basketball for four years before getting back on the boys' bench at MRA where he coached both but found another girls' head coach as he serves as the school's athletic director as well. 

 

"That's why I left Lee, I wanted to coach boys again," he said. "I was here for about 11 years and became athletic director and coached boys and girls for about 19 years. Then I fired myself as girls' basketball coach and just coached boys since then. That's probably the reason I'm still coaching."

 

Looking back on his time at Moorhead, Duease played football, basketball and tennis.

 

He started at quarterback mid-way through his freshman year against East Mississippi and had a good game. But he "tore his knee up" in practice the following week to end his season. His sophomore season was going well as starter for three games as quarterback and punter, then came the matchup against Itawamba.

 

"I rolled out and a guy hit me late and I broke my arm. That basically ended that and then I went to MS State the second semester," he said. 

 

The Delta legend met another Delta legend during his junior high basketball season – Archie Manning.

 

"He was a senior when I was in the ninth grade but he was our hero. Nobody could but everybody tried to emulate their games after him. Not just football but basketball, baseball and track. He did everything. I played five sports at Indianola and enjoyed them all but track," he said. "They called my brother Mousie and he's eight years older than me so they called me Rat because I was bigger than he was. One day we were playing Drew in junior high and he came through the gym after practice and stopped and talked to me because I wore the same number as him in football. He was my hero."

 

Gathering the 1,701 wins, Coach Duease has had to adapt to the game's changes but has always kept the fundamentals sharp. 

 

"We play hard-nosed man to man. The game has changed more offensively than defensively. Back in the day you ran a lot of sets (on offense) and you wanted to dictate where the players were supposed to be. Now the athletes have gotten to a point where you have to let them show their creativity and imagination. Now we try to throw over the top and outrun the teams to the other end. Then we attack immediately and if we can't we might run some sets. We may go five out motion or four in and one out. The speed of the game is what has really changed over the years. We've averaged 29 wins a year for 38 years. It's been pretty good."

 

With so much success over the years, Duease was asked to join the college ranks but his family came first. Having married late at 35 and having his daughter at 37, he chose to be close to home and to her (Anne Taylor Duease Lindsey).

 

"About the second or third grade, my wife, (Kim) and I talked and I said. 'I want to be where she is. I don't want to be on the road recruiting. I'm putting it all in God's hands and when it's time to leave I'll leave.' I'm very happy and by doing that I never worried about moving on because I knew God had me where he wanted me to be."

 

Duease's players have gone on to D1, D2, D3 and JUCO schools but his "coaching tree" has blossomed and produced plenty of fruit.

 

"I've got a guy who's an assistant at Texas, a guy at Southeast Louisiana. I've got a lot of guys in high school coaching who played for me," he said. 

 

Retirement is not a thought for Coach Duease. He's Zooming with his players and the strength coach has them working to get stronger. 

 

"We talk about different things and stay involved with them. That's about all we can do right now," he said. 

 

Like most coaches, Coach Duease doesn't dwell too much on the success but the losses haunt him at times. 

 

"You sit back and think, 'how did I lose that game? How did that happen?' I just don't think about the wins as much as I think about the losses and what I could have done better and put our team in a position to win."

 

Looking over his career, he says, "The Lord has really blessed me and He's given me a great job, a great family and a great town to live in."

 

And on the area that molded him, he said, "those years in the 60s where I got to play sports and do other things was probably, I don't know if I could have been in a better place in the country than Indianola, Mississippi at that time."