Former Hinds Community College basketball coach Troy Arlis Ricks Sr. is among six, including four coaches and two players, named to the 2011 National Junior College Athletic Association Basketball Hall of Fame.
Ricks of Raymond, who died in January 2010 at age 89, is included along with Gloucester County College (N.J.) head coach Stephen Solomone, head coach Allen Pickering of Lincoln College (Ill.), Iowa Central Community College (Iowa) head coach Dennis Pilcher, and former Moberly Junior College (Mo.) players McCoy McLemore and Phillip Murrell.
In his coaching career at Hinds Community College, which lasted from 1951 to 1970, Ricks finished with a record of 496-58.
Hinds President Dr. Clyde Muse said he knew Ricks before he became president in 1978 but got to know him much better at that time. “I really learned of the contributions he made not only in athletics, but in the teaching and counseling of our students. He set a great example to students here at the college and in the community as well,” Muse said.
Harlan Stanley, who graduated from Hinds in 1964, said Ricks influenced many people. “He was one of the reasons I went into education,” Stanley said.
Prior to Hinds, Ricks coached at Copiah-Lincoln Community College for two seasons where he twice led his team to the Mississippi state title. In 1967, his Hinds team also a Mississippi state championship. In his last 10 years of coaching, eight of his teams finished in the top four in the state.
Before his coaching days, Ricks was an incredible basketball player himself. He was named to the All-Tournament Team in every tournament he played in high school. He then attended Sunflower Junior College (now Mississippi Delta Community College) and led the school to two state championships and the Mississippi Valley Conference Championship, being named Most Valuable Player both years.
From there, he attended Delta State University where his team finished third in the National Tournament and he was selected to the NAIB All-Tournament Team. He eventually played professionally for the Union Wire Rope before being drafted into the Army.
“I wish we had had film of him playing basketball. I would have loved to have been able to see that,” said one of his three children, Troy Arlis “T.A.” Ricks Jr. “He really accomplished a great deal in his lifetime, being able to work with and help students – his basketball players – and lead them in the direction that a lot of them took.”
Ricks received several honors for his coaching success and unmatched character. In 1970, his last year of coaching, Ricks was given the Distinguished Service Award by the Mississippi Association of Coaches. He is already a member of the following Halls of Fame in Mississippi: Hinds Community College Hall of Fame, Copiah-Lincoln Community College Hall of Fame, Mississippi Delta Community College Hall of Fame, Delta State University Hall of Fame and the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.
In fall 2010 the Wellness Complex on the Raymond Campus was renamed in his honor as the Troy Arlis Ricks Sr. Wellness Complex.
