Timpson is nestled deep in the heart of East Texas; the Louisiana border a 30-minute drive down U.S. 84 E away. There’s one traffic light, a Brookshire Brothers and a generational football player among its listed population of 989 people.

The turf football field where the community converges on Friday night is quiet on this drizzly Monday morning the week of Thanksgiving.

And Terry Bussey is indistinguishable in the crowd of black helmets.

A five-star Texas A&M commit should stand out like Bigfoot on this 2A Division I team, even though he’s not a hulking figure at 5-feet-11-inches and 180 pounds. But it’s not until witnessing him in live action he takes your breath away.

Bussey’s been the best player on the field from the moment he suited up for varsity as a freshman. Last season, his junior year, he ascended to being the best player in Texas. He passed for over 2,100 yards and rushed for over 2,500 yards at quarterback. Then came 115 tackles and four pick-sixes at defensive back. Oh, and Bussey returned three kickoffs and a punt return for a touchdown. By season’s end, he’d accounted for 72 total touchdowns and was the first junior to be named Mr. Texas Football since former Allen quarterback Kyler Murray.

But that season concluded like the two before it, with a loss in the state semifinals. Ahead of the 2023 campaign, Timpson head coach Kerry Therwhanger understood the stakes; Bussey’s senior year is the program’s final chance, for the foreseeable future and maybe ever, at a state championship.

“This is our shot. If we don’t get it done, then you go into rebuild mode,” Therwhanger said. “We all understand, the coaches understand, the kids understand that this is going to be it.”

Wednesday night’s matchup with Tolar will bring joy from reaching the pinnacle of Timpson’s first state title in school history or heartache at the last opportunity with its revolutionary player graduating.

But no matter the outcome, Terry Bussey’s legacy in Timpson is already written.

The Timpson Bears were prepping for their third-round matchup against Honey Grove, a game they’ll eventually win 68-7. The sky opened into a torrential downpour that turned practice into film study inside the coaches’ office.

Bussey’s easily spotted now that the team ditched their shoulder pads and helmets. He stands in the hallway of Timpson’s athletic complex while a teammate and assistant coach playfully wrap him in chokeholds. He chuckles and flashes that signature toothy grin.

“If you were to come in this hallway and I say, ‘Okay, stand in here when these kids walk through, and you pick out the five-star.’ You’re not going to do it,” Timpson principal Jerrod Campbell said.

Timpson’s elementary, middle and high schools all occupy a different corner on one plot of land. When Bussey steps outside his building he passes elementary school kids shouting his name from the playground. A little kid from Centerville sprinted across the field after Timpson beat his team 41-14 in the playoffs to ask for a picture with Bussey. He’s earned a role model status from his football prowess. With that comes the responsibility of carrying himself as his mother taught him.

“If you do the right thing, and always do the right thing for the right reasons, you’re going to get rewards coming out of it,” Bussey said. “God’s going to bless you in the right way if you carry yourself the right way.”

Nanette Bussey raised Terry and his two sisters, a single mother working as a Head Start teacher at Tri-County and holding additional jobs at Pilgrims and Dollar General to support her kids. However, Nanette had some help from her mother to ensure the children woke up for church on Sundays. Nanette ran a tight ship. Terry knew he had no chance of sneaking out of the house or staying up past his bedtime. He probably wouldn’t have pulled a stunt like that anyway. Young Terry was a momma’s boy. He had his own room but slept in Nanette’s until age 13.

“I couldn’t stay the night nowhere because I wanted to go home and be with my momma at 12 a.m.” Bussey said.  

But the guy who couldn’t spend one night away from his mom had turned into a menace on the gridiron. Bussey was the star running back for Timpson’s peewee and junior high teams. He lined up in the backfield at his natural position when he got to his first week of high school practice. Kerry Therwhanger had a different plan.

Timpson’s head coach had seen the magic that could happen when a small-school team put its best athlete at quarterback. Reginald Davis had earned a Texas Tech scholarship at wide receiver after lighting up East Texas as the quarterback at nearby Tenaha. Former Texas A&M wide receiver Roshauud Paul earned 2016 Mr. Texas Football honors, leading Bremond to a 15–0 state title season.

Bussey was a reluctant quarterback but assumed the title after two weeks.

“You’re gonna have the ball in your hands every play. You’re gonna be those guys,” Therwhanger told Bussey. “Little did I know, none of those guys were ever a five-star.”

Even after all the accolades, Bussey’s favorite football memory is still the district championship his freshman year when he wasn’t playing quarterback. Facing favored Joaquin, Timpson roared to a 63-0 win and its first undefeated season since 1975. Playing wide receiver and defensive back as he healed from a shoulder injury, Bussey caught a touchdown and intercepted a pass. That was the first sign of the Timpson juggernaut that’d form in the ensuing years.

“I thought we might be pretty decent,” Therwhanger said that night. “But to tell you we’d average 50 points and be 10–0? No, I didn't expect this.”

Ever since, Bussey’s football career has resembled a rocket ship trajectory. His notoriety has reached the point as a senior where grown men will stop him at the Buc-ees in Madisonville and FaceTime friends showing they're with Terry Bussey. He’s been recognized at the AT&T store in Nacogdoches on a road trip.

But Bussey is still a quiet kid. Guarded. He’s compiled over 30 Division I offers, yet on official visits, he often puts the nametag the university gives him in his pocket with the lanyard hanging out instead of around his neck. That way, the people who approach him know who he is, not just the name.

Everyone in Timpson knows his name. But they have a deeper connection to him. The grocery store and gas station employees in Terry’s hometown have watched Bussey grow since he was two years old at Nanette’s side. They know him, not the idea of him.

“A lot of people around here that know me and know everything, they don’t really care about me as an athlete,” Bussey said. “They care about me as a person. You really can tell how people are. I see past people’s emotions and stuff. I really look past people when they just look at you as an athlete. You can really tell when someone's genuine and really cares about you.”

It’s a mature answer from a 17-year-old kid forced to grow up too fast.

Nanette Bussey’s health complications from diabetes first flared when Terry was in fifth grade. She fought hard for years but was in and out of the hospital by the beginning of 2021. A stroke ended her life on March 24 of that year. Terry was 14, just a freshman at Timpson.

Terry’s father was never in the picture. He and his older sisters, TyKuirra Bryant and ShyKuirra Bussey, were scattered after Nanette’s death. While Terry has plenty of half-siblings in Timpson, he says TyKuirra, ShyKuirra and he had the tightest bond because they shared the same mother and father. It became them three against the world. Terry still refers to ShyKuirra as his younger sister, even though she's a year older than him, because he's protective of her. Also ... he outgrew her by the fifth grade.

Since TyKuirra had graduated from Timpson in 2017, she went to live with her boyfriend in Carthage. ShyKuirra and Terry needed to stay local to finish high school. ShyKuirra went to live with nearby relatives, but they didn't have enough room to house Terry.

That’s how Terry started staying with Timpson principal Jerrod Campbell’s family.

Campbell served as Bussey’s PE Teacher from first through fifth grade. His son, Jackson, was a grade below Bussey. But because they were the same age (Terry will be a 17-year-old college freshman), they played Little Dribblers youth basketball together and swam at Campbell’s house during the summer. Bussey became familiar with the family and the high standard they held Jackson and his sisters to.

So Bussey would live with the Campbell family Monday through Friday, then make the 40-minute drive north to Carthage to stay with TyKuirra over the weekends. An arrangement that’d started as Campbell offering a place to crash had turned into Bussey becoming another family member. Campbell once asked Bussey why he’d chosen to live with him.

“Because I knew you wouldn’t let me do what I wanted to do,” Bussey responded.

He sought another lovingly stern household like his mother had raised him in.

“I knew it was something that I needed,” Bussey said. “Because if I didn’t have any strict rules, I probably don’t know where I’d be right now.”

This living situation, shuttling back and forth from the Campbells to TyKuirra’s place, lasted from Nanette’s death to October of that year. Bussey sank into a routine and found a solid foundation once more. Then, it was rocked again.

TyKuirra Bryant’s body was found in her driveway in the morning hours of Sunday, October 31, 2021. She’d been shot and killed at 22 years old. At the time of her death, she was working toward a teaching degree, continuing to serve others like she did at Timpson High School as an athletic manager for the girl’s program.

“She was probably one of the sweetest souls that you’d ever come across,” Campbell said.

Campbell pulled Bussey out of church later that morning to tell him. But, really, there were no words to comfort him. Bussey had lost his mother and oldest sister in seven months. These were two of the most significant losses he could experience before his 15th birthday.

In August, Bally Sports produced a mini-doc on Bussey's high school career. The high school senior reveals how grief made him lose trust in building relationships.

“I went into a place where I was like, ‘Dang, I can’t really be close to nobody without them leaving me,’” Bussey said.

He's a once-in-a-lifetime athlete twice saddled with once-in-a-lifetime tragedy. And he’s persevered to become one of the state’s most decorated athletes with a college scholarship.

“You got to have God on your side,” Bussey said. “And you got to have family that cares about you.”

He leaned on the Campbells, whom he moved in with full-time after TyKuirra’s passing. But he also relied on his sister, ShyKuirra, and many aunts and uncles living in Timpson. He and his older “little” sister were the only two sitting at the table in front of the entire Timpson town when Terry committed to Texas A&M. ShyKuirra was the first person to find out Terry was picking the Aggies when Terry opened his backpack five minutes before the ceremony to show her. ShyKuirra said she knew he would pick them. After all they’ve been through together, the two understand each other better than anyone else.

Nanette and TyKuirra should’ve been at that table with him, too. Their absence illustrated the life’s worth of hardship Terry’s already endured. It made that town-wide celebration all the more important.

“He had every opportunity to start feeling sorry for himself, to get into some stuff that he shouldn’t be into,” Therwhanger said. “He chose the right path to stay on. He had that vision as a young kid of where he wanted to go.”

He pushed forward. No excuses. Even when he should’ve had several.

The craziest part of Terry Bussey’s aforementioned season wasn’t that he was the first non-senior Mr. Texas Football since a Heisman trophy winning, first overall NFL Draft pick. It’s that he did it with a torn meniscus.

He thought he tweaked his knee in game five last season. Over the weekend, the Campbells drove to Shreveport to pick out their daughter's new truck. Bussey started noticing his knee swelling in the car. Once they reached Louisiana, Campbell remembers Bussey gingerly stepping up on a curb and thinking it could be severe.

But then the swelling went down, Bussey said it wasn’t hampering him, and then he stopped talking about it altogether. He finished out the season. Therwhanger confirms. It's true. Bussey sometimes relayed that his knee hurt slightly, but then he’d take off for one of his 72 touchdowns moments later.

“Y’all saw the stats,” Therwhanger says.

Bussey had numerous Division I offers during his junior season. He could’ve shut it down at the first sign of pain, safeguarding his lucrative future. But he didn’t. Why?

“The locker room, the guys,” Bussey said. “To see how they work, how hard we’ve worked for one goal. To give up on them like that, it’s just something I couldn’t do.”

So he dominated a 15-game football season. Then, he led Timpson’s basketball team to the 2A Region III semifinals. After that, it was on to track season, where he qualified for state in the long jump, triple jump, 4x100 and 4x200 relays, and ran a 10.66 100-yard dash. The Timpson track team returned from the regional track meet on Saturday for a “Sunday Funday” in the park. Bussey and his friends were playing football, with Bussey attempting to cover his teammate at cornerback. He backpedaled, then opened his hips to sprint with the wide receiver when his knee locked up. He couldn’t shake it or move it.

The knee that’d supported him for a calendar year of Paul Bunyan-esque feats finally gave out.

It was Bussey’s first significant injury in high school, having torn his patella tendon in seventh grade trying to dunk a basketball in layup lines. It kept him out through the summer and the start of his senior season. Timpson raced to a 2–0 start even with Bussey’s absence, but game three rejoined them with 3A power Daingerfield.

Bussey received clearance on Tuesday of game week, but Therwhanger wanted to wait. Bussey persisted until Therwhanger relented slightly and let him play at receiver, away from most tackling. But with the game knotted at 26 deep into the fourth quarter, acting quarterback JJ Garner started cramping up again from the strain of playing both ways the whole night.

Each time Garner had previously cramped, Bussey turned to Therwhanger on the sidelines and begged to go in at quarterback. On the final drive of the game, Therwhanger conceded. Four plays later, he scored the game-winning rushing touchdown.

Terry Bussey was back. He’ll walk into AT&T Stadium Wednesday night at full health and a 51–3 career record at Timpson, searching for the final win that will cement his historic status.

…

I turn from washing my hands in a Timpson gas station bathroom and nearly collide with an older gentleman decked in maroon. Noticing my DCTF polo, he asks who I’m doing a story on. I pause to tell him I’m writing about Terry Bussey.

“I thought that’s who you were here for,” he responds.

Curious how accurate Therwhanger’s celebrity label for the five-stat player is, I ask around the store and pull the manager aside to tell her I'm a writer doing a feature story on Terry Bussey. Did she know who he was? Another woman stocking the soda fountain with cups immediately perks up.

“Terry Bussey!” She exclaims. “I worked with his mom.”

The manager says they, indeed, all know Terry very well. She mentions how good he is to all the kids asking for autographs and pictures with him.

I head out of the gas station and drive across the street to the Brookshire Brothers to do more questioning and pick up snacks for the impending road trip. I do the same spiel to the college-aged woman scanning my food. Does she know who he is? She gives a laugh like she’d just heard an obvious question. Yes, she does. Terry is a close friend of her sister, she says. This settles it in my mind: Bussey is famous in Timpson.

It’s not until I’m halfway home it dawns on me no one told the football writer how good Terry Bussey is at football. Maybe that’s obvious.

Or maybe it’s because Terry Bussey was right when he said his character mattered most to them.