Hall of Fame inductee Dickie Lee one of Quaker Valley’s first stars on hardwood
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Friday, August 3, 2018 | 10:39 PM
Quaker Valley High School’s boys basketball team has developed into a power over the years.
Dickie Lee was one of its first stars.
A 1968 graduate, Lee became the first player in program history to average more than 20 points per game in a season and graduated as the Quakers’ all-time leading scorer. He will add another honor when he is inducted into the Quaker Valley Sports Hall of Fame on Sept. 23 at Sewickley Heights Golf Club.
“It’s a great honor,” he said. “It’s the icing on the cake of my basketball career.”
Lee, a three-year letterwinner, became an impact player for the Quakers. During his senior year, he averaged 20.3 points and set a school record with 427 points scored. Quaker Valley won 15 games that season, which was a program record, as well.
“I still remember going to the gyms Saturday mornings. They let the junior high basketball players go up and play then,” he said. “I started going up there and playing with the big guys on Saturday mornings. There’d be a game going on at one half of the court and another game going on at the other half court. It was great.
“I remember the first time I went down there. Vince Cortese was the coach and he saw me shooting layups left-handed. He came over to the basket and had me going in shooting one right-handed and then one left-handed. I was in ninth grade, and he was telling his older guys to look at me. When I graduated, he said to me, ‘Where am I going to find another pure shooter like you?’ ”
Lee remembers his Quakers had some extra motivation to win games.
“If we didn’t play good, we ran the steps from the locker room up to the weight room, in addition to our normal running,” he said. “The good thing was, when you were in the game late and somebody was shooting a foul shot, your guys were standing up straight and the other teams’ guys were holding onto their shorts. It got you into shape.”
Keith Starr, who later broke Lee’s scoring records before playing at Pitt and in the NBA, remembers watching Lee as a youngster.
“I am very happy to see him get honored. He was one of my idols growing up. Bruce Rucker was the other,” he said. “Dickie had a game that was ahead of his time during his high school years. He was a complete all-around player. He was built exactly like a basketball player. He had great moves. He could shoot, play great defense and pass the ball. He was a complete player.
“I used to go watch him play when I was in middle school. They had a real good team with a lot of other guys I admired growing up. I couldn’t wait to play. We would sit in the stands thinking about being on the floor and playing.”
Lee attended Community College of Allegheny County for a year before he was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Vietnam. Later, he served in the Army Reserve.
“I thought my last basketball hurrah was when I was in the Reserves and we went to Kentucky one year. We were near some big field with a carnival, and we saw they had some games of chance. There was one that had about eight hoops, and it was a dollar or two to take a shot to win a prize,” he said.
“I went down there and made shots to get prizes for seven or eight of my buddies. We went back to the barracks and everyone saw this and wanted some prizes. The next day, we went down there again and there was a different guy at the table running it. I started to make some baskets, then the guy from the first day came out and snatched the ball from me and said I was done. I was too good to shoot. I thought that was my last hurrah for basketball, but this is definitely it. I am very honored.”
Joe Sager is a freelance writer.
Tags: Quaker Valley
