By Rodney Haas 

605 Sports 

DUPREE — With a few weeks before the start of practice, the plan called for Mike Busch to work as an assistant to head coach Jeremy Meeks. 

However, those plans changed. 

Outside commitments caused Meeks to step down as head coach — promoting Busch, while Meeks, who has been the Tigers head coach for the past couple of seasons, stayed on as an assistant. 

“It’s been a really good working position,” said Busch, who’s been coaching football and basketball for 40 years with stops all over the state. “Mr. Meeks is an experienced coach, he’s a good coach. We work well together and it’s best for the kids to have them see us work well together. 

“That’s helped us with some of our early success. He’s given me great insight on what the conference is like, the teams and the style of play.”

Dupree is the latest coaching stop for Busch, a Huron High School graduate and former South Dakota State University quarterback. Busch later signed an undrafted free agent deal with the Atlanta Falcons in 1986 and played two games for the New York Giants during the 1987 season, which was shortened due to the player’s strike. 

He then embarked on a coaching career. For Busch, in addition to his duties as head boys basketball coach, he is entering his first year as principal for grades 7-12 after spending the past six years as principal at Standing Rock Community school in Fort Yates, North Dakota. 

It’s the latest stop in an education and coaching career that has taken him on a Forest Gump-like journey where he’s had an early impact on some South Dakota sports celebrities. 

“It’s just being at the right time at the right place for me,” Busch said of the Forrest Gump reference.

When Busch was coaching at Rapid City Central, one of his players in high school was Adam Vinatieri, who would go on to hit a pair of Super Bowl game-winning field goals for the New England Patriots. When Busch was head football coach in Milbank, one of his players was current Alabama football coach Kalen DeBoer. Then when Busch was an assistant under Gary Munsen in Mitchell, one of his players was Mike Miller, who would go on to win two NBA championships with the Miami Heat.

“Those guys ended up being the superstars in a professional sporting career, but there are so many guys that are so talented that have gone onto become successful business people, family people that make up all those teams over the years,” Busch said. “You are really excited to see them excel and do what they do best from the state of South Dakota. I had a chance to be around those guys when they were young and when they were going through their own success story in high school. You never know where everyone is going to be.”

At Dupree, the Tigers are 7-2 and won the He Sapa Bracket at the Lakota Nation Invitational, and had a 58-55 win over Lead-Deadwood at the Hoop City Classic in Mitchell. 

“We really have good senior leadership throughout all of this,” Busch said. “We have a good group of young kids that have bought into our style of play and they come to work and they come to practice and they want to learn and get better with a good plan to be successful.”

The Tigers are led by senior Braydon Terveen-Smith, who accepted a football scholarship to play football for the School of Mines in Rapid City. Roper Eaton, who was the quarterback of the football team and helped lead the Tigers to a playoff appearance, and Brandin Jewett, who Busch said “gives us minutes off the bench.” 

Meanwhile junior point guard Tre White Wolf and juniors Cruz Birkeland, Spencer Olsen and Talyn Ley have been some of the top newcomers along with Noah Little Wounded.

“We have some talented kids here and I think that’s the key,” Busch said. “They are willing to work hard and they are coachable and I think early in the season that is a really fun thing about coaching them.”

Despite the Tigers’ suffering their second loss of the season Friday to Little Wound, Dupree has more than doubled their win total from this point in the season last year. However, Busch was still cautiously optimistic about the Tigers making plans to be in Aberdeen for the Class B state tournament.  

“From my standpoint, there’s always season goals that you want to accomplish. I think if you are competitive and want to win and have a strong program, that (state tournament appearance) has to be one of your goals at the beginning of the year to do well in your region, get to the SoDak16 and have a chance to get to the tournament.”