Lori Archer’s Journey: From Uncertainty to Beloved Athletic Director at Heritage High School
By FRED KRONER
Lori Archer knew what she wanted. The only issue was whether others – the decision-makers, in this case – shared her feelings.
Archer interviewed for a job at Heritage High School in the summer of 1994 that included duties as the district’s athletic director.
“I left my interview at Heritage feeling like it was a place I really wanted to be, and considered it the ‘perfect’ job,” Archer said.
Her interview at Heritage – located in Broadlands, about 40 miles south and east of Urbana – was on a Tuesday. It was a busy day. It was one of her two job interviews on the same day.
“I interviewed for a teaching position at another school on the same day I interviewed at Heritage,” Archer said. “The other school called me that same evening and offered me the job.”
That turn of events placed her in an untenable position.
“I turned them down because I knew Heritage was where I really wanted to be,” she said. “After two days, I was beginning to doubt my decision.”
By the end of the week, however, Archer’s patience was rewarded.
“I received a call from the Heritage superintendent (Oris Bunn) offering me the job,” Archer said. “It truly felt like fate.”
It was a call that led to happiness ever after. Well, mostly happiness ever after.
“There were a few unusual circumstances early in my career (including two student walkouts/and a coach firing, then rehiring and canceling part of the football season), where I questioned what I had gotten myself into, but I never doubted my decision to come to Heritage, nor did I ever think about leaving,” Archer said. “It was easy to stay because of the administration, colleagues, coaches, officials, athletes, students, and parents that I have been lucky enough to work with.”
The tumultuous times early in her Heritage tenure included the off-season firing of the head football coach in 1995 who had guided the school into the playoffs in 1994 during an eight-win season.
Archer remembers that it happened “in early spring (the day of a track meet), so I had to take the boys to a track meet in Mahomet and we had a junior high teacher take the girls to sectionals.
The event was not popular among the students.
“The student body held a walkout to protest his firing,” Archer said. “Our superintendent and principal were both out of the building that day, so I was the one designated to convince and negotiate with the students to come back into the building with the promise that their voices would be heard and we would take their concerns into consideration (the coach was later rehired).”
She successfully navigated that moment, but another unexpected occurrence took place prior to the end of the same school year.
“The seniors also had a sit-in later that year where they refused to attend class as a protest because one of their fellow classmates was not going to be allowed to walk through the graduation ceremony,” Archer said.
Her school life was much calmer in the years that followed.
Archer graduated from Bethany High School in 1983 and had early role models who influenced her career path.
“I had several teachers and coaches (in particular Barb Ozier, Marty Lindvahl, and Randy Inman) that I really admired, and knew I wanted to touch young lives like they did mine,” Archer said. “I guess I always knew I wanted to be in education.
“I was especially interested in sports and thought I could stay involved by becoming a teacher and coach.”
Archer graduated from Millikin University, in Decatur, in 1987, with a bachelor’s degree in education.
Her first stop was for five years in northern Illinois, near Rockford.
“I was married before I came to Heritage,” Archer said. “My husband (Jim) was also a teacher, coach and athletic director in Durand.
“While we were there, I worked as the elementary school librarian, a substitute teacher, a bus driver and coach (for junior high volleyball and high school junior varsity basketball).”
Tragedy struck the family.
“At the end of our third year there, he was diagnosed with cancer,” Archer said.
He passed away nine months later at age 42. Lori Archer decided to move closer to her support system.
“I had made some lifetime friends at Durand, but knew I wanted to be closer to my family (mother, sister, nephews and niece),” she said. “My job at Heritage allowed me to ‘come home,’ but also continue a job that meant so much to my husband and quickly a job that meant so much to me.
“It seemed to be the perfect fit for me. It allowed me the opportunity to teach and still be involved in athletics.”
Her duties at Heritage – which has a high school enrollment this year of 123 students – have included teaching elementary physical education, junior high physical education and both junior high and high school health. She also drives a morning and afternoon bus route.
Archer is not only one of the longest-tenured current athletic directors in Central Illinois, but also the most versatile. If she had a fan club, the President could well be Tom Davis, the current Heritage superintendent who – like Archer – was hired as a teacher in the district in 1994, and never left.
“She is a fantastic bus driver driving morning and afternoon routes every day for the past 30 years through all kinds of weather and changes, from diesel to propane buses,” Davis said. “She is an excellent PE teacher, especially at the younger grades where the kids just adore her, and she has taught junior high and high school health, which shows her flexibility in teaching at all grade levels every day, from small kids in PE to junior high and high school health, and then driving all ages to and from school.”
Davis sees a strong parallel between Archer’s two favorite collegiate programs and the long-time Heritage athletic director.
“I think she has always admired coaches like Pat Summitt (former Tennessee women’s basketball coach) and Mike Krzyzewski (former Duke men’s basketball coach), who were so successful and had incredible longevity at the top of the college game,” Davis said. “When it comes to the IHSA and IESA and who are the longest serving, most dedicated and most professional athletic directors in Illinois and in Central Illinois, she is that person, just like Pat and Mike and the sports figures she has admired for those qualities.
“I have been spoiled to be able to be first a coach and then an administrator with Lori Archer in charge of everything. Any of my colleagues would trade places to have all her qualities the last 30 years here at Heritage.”
Former Heritage High School coaches echo Davis’ sentiments and pinpoint specific traits where Archer has excelled.
Heritage graduate Andy Place (Class of 1998) returned to his alma mater as the boys’ basketball coach from 2007-15.
“As a kid, you’re in your own world and overlook how things get done,” said Place, who now teaches and coaches at Mount Zion. “She was really organized and had everything scheduled out.
“I don’t remember ever not having a bus (for away games) or officials. She had a strong relationship with the people who ran the clock and did the bookkeeping.
“There were always people there. I didn’t have to do recruiting (to fill the positions).”
Lisa Boyer had three coaching stints at Heritage, two of which occurred with Archer as the AD.
“If challenges came up, she fixed it,” Boyer said. “With athletes, they knew they could trust her. I don’t remember her ever making a bad decision.
“She made it (coaching) as easy as could be.”
In addition to the roles for which Archer was paid, there was another one which Boyer said was essential.
“She was a counselor, a good sounding board and one person I knew I could trust to keep things confidential,” Boyer said. “I knew she would always have your back. She made it easy to be around her.
“Fun times were fun, and she found a way to turn negatives into a positive. She was interested in building a program and not just having someone coach a team.”
Davis said Archer exemplified the characteristics that administrators seek. Her commitment and dedication are unparalleled.
“She is the most organized,” Davis said, “the person who works ahead on everything, is hands on right now to supervising, hiring, keeping finances and game schedules, scorekeeping, ticket taking, serving on conference and state committees, and doing all this along with her other jobs and doing it at a small district, but then again a district that has had several different cooperative programs with schools from Shiloh to Villa Grove, and now with Academy High.
“You can tell she is that respected because the referees and officials and schools we work with know that they are working with someone who is honest, well-prepared, organized, and knows sports and the IHSA and IESA backwards and forwards.
“Through multiple administrators and coaches throughout the years in the district, which has been pretty stable compared to many others actually, she has been the one constant and she has truly been a rock foundation for Heritage sports and activities. And I mean in every aspect, from music and Scholastic Bowl to supporting things we have added over the years, like bass fishing.
“Lori is on top of everything and any new issue or development that comes up, she handles it like a consummate professional.”
For obvious reasons, coaching was never a part of Archer’s to-do list.
“With all of the other duties I’ve had at Heritage, I just didn’t feel like I could add coaching to that list,” Archer said.
Her interest in sports can be traced to her childhood.
“When I was growing up, I LOVED softball/baseball,” Archer said. “I was lucky enough to live in town, so we were always getting together at the park to put together a game.
“I played every summer.”
During her years in Bethany – where she lived from the time she was six months old through high school – softball was only offered at the junior high level. The only sports available for girls when she entered high school at Bethany were basketball and track.
She was involved in each all four years and earned seven varsity letters overall.
“I would have played anything that was offered,” Archer said.
Archer never lost interest in her favorite sport.
“I did continue playing slow pitch softball until my cancer diagnosis in 2005,” she said. “After that, I decided it was time to give it up.”
Her high school career was curtailed by a torn anterior cruciate ligament during her junior season in basketball. She underwent knee surgery in the summer of 1982.
“I was able to come back for my senior year, but had issues that whole year,” Archer said. “As a result, I had to have a second knee surgery at the end of my senior year and eventually a third surgery.”
Those operations ended her hopes of playing at the collegiate level, “so I stuck with slow pitch softball for as long as I could,” she added.
When her retirement from Heritage becomes official in June, Archer doesn’t expect to be idle for long. She has started considering various possibilities.
“I have already decided I’m going to need something to do when I’m retired,” she said. “I don’t think I can go from a 14-hour day to having nothing to do.
“I would really like to look into driving a bus for an assisted living facility or the Dial-a-Ride program. I know I want to do something where I can be around people and feel like I’m being helpful.”
She won’t be a stranger at a school where she has worked for more than a quarter of a century and parts of four decades.
“I can definitely see myself attending Heritage games,” Archer said. “It will be nice to get there at game time, instead of an hour before, enjoying the game and not worrying whether or not a team or officials are going to show up, and leaving right after the game, rather than staying to put away chairs, cleaning up, making sure everyone has rides, etc.”
For now, she is focused on a strong end to the school year and her tenure as the athletic director.
“My goal is to try and relax and enjoy my last few months of school,” Archer said. “I want to soak it all in and have fun.
“I want the kids to love coming to PE every day, and I want to be able to look back and hope that I gave as much to the district and kids as they have given to me.
“It has been my pleasure and honor to say, ‘Once a Hawk, ALWAYS a Hawk.’”
As for hobbies, Archer is going to have to work on that aspect of her life and expand it to include more than walking her dog.
“Honestly, I don’t know that I have any true hobbies,” she said. “My job has consumed a great deal of my time, sometimes putting in 14-15 hour days, so it hasn’t allowed time for me.
“I do enjoy doing yard work.”
She went above and beyond in that endeavor. For 29 summers, Archer mowed the lawn at the school in Broadlands.
Her favorite teams – besides the Heritage Hawks – are from geographically different areas. She has a special fondness for Duke men’s basketball, Tennessee women’s basketball and the major league baseball team that won the 2016 World Series, the Chicago Cubs.
On her Bucket List would be a chance to add to her travels.
“My dream vacation would be an Alaskan cruise,” Archer said.
She will start, in a little more than 90 days, by cruising into a well-deserved retirement.
