From state championship showdowns in Rupp Arena to the McDonald’s All-American Game in Chicago, Billy Hicks has scaled the heights of high school basketball in Kentucky. Over 1,000 wins and two state titles put him at the top of the all-time greats in a state known for its basketball.

But at every stop in a Hall of Fame career that took him from Evarts to Harlan to Corbin to Scott County, Hicks would often return in his mind to Ages Bottom where he grew up in the late 50s and throughout the 60s.

He went back for real on Saturday to lead the Evarts Basketball Camp where he worked with Clover Fork boys and girls in grades 3-8, teaching them the fundamentals he learned when he was growing up in Clover Fork before his graduation from Evarts High School in 1970 as one of the best to ever play there.

Hicks’ fame as a player was eventually surpassed, however, by his work in coaching with 1,013 victories, including 33 in state tournament competition. He recently announced his retirement from coaching after leading Scott County to a state runner-up finish last March.

He agreed to return to Clover Fork for the basketball camp after receiving a call from Evarts coach John Middleton.

“One thing I’ve always told our players is you have to use your success to help others,” Hicks said. “When John asked me to come up here and do this, I told him I wouldn’t take any money but I’d like to help. I believe if you use your success to help others then success will continue to follow you. If I can come up here and help one kid, it’s worth it.”

“It says a lot about coach Hicks that he would take time out of his retirement to come back and work with the kids of Harlan County,” Middleton said. “Both myself and the kids are thankful for the opportunity to learn from a great coach and better person.”

Hicks spent much of his time during the four camp sessions on ball-handling drills, noting that fundamentals were always at the core of his program’s success through the years.

“The fundamentals has always been the backbone of any success my teams have had, right up to the end,” Hicks said. “We never got away from fundamentals — ball handling, shooting and passing. As we got better players, we got to the point where no one could press us. Teams would play man-to-man against everyone else but would play zone against us because we got so good at passing.

“You never get away from that, and you have to teach it early. There are learning stages in academics and sports. There are certain things have to be learned early or it’s tough to learn it the right way. They call it critical periods in academics, but there are also critical periods in sports.”

Hicks plans to spend some time with former players who are coaching during the upcoming season, his first away from basketball since a one-year break he had in 1980 while working in the coal industry.

“Tommy Ward once showed me a big list of things he wanted to do when he retired and told me he’d start doing them once he finds the time,” Hicks said. “Betsy and I have been pretty busy traveling this spring. I’ve enjoyed it so far. I have so many former players coaching that I can stay busy. I can hop in a car and run down to Eastern and see what A.W. (Hamilton) is doing and get excited about that. I have Tony (Pietrowski) at Corbin and Jim Bob (Hicks) at Shelby Valley. I have enough to keep me busy, plus Betsy likes to travel. I guess it hasn’t sunk in yet. I haven’t had time to think about it.”

Hicks said he planned to make a left on KY 38 on his way home and take a drive around Ages, noting he hadn’t been back to Harlan County in several years, except for funerals.

“Long before it became a fad to say, when you were growing up in Ages the village raised you,” Hicks said. “That’s where you learned to play ball and fish, and the schools were great. Any success I had academically was formed in those first seven years at Ages. I had some of the best teachers in the world there. We walked home to eat lunch every day, unless the weather was bad then we went to Fannie Henson’s grocery and had a bowl of chili or soup.

“I don’t know if you could create that type of environment again. (Former Clover Fork Clinic administrator) Britt Lewis refers to it as Camelot. He’s not too far off. It was a great place to grow up. Everybody in the Ages/Brookside community looked out for you. The whole community believed in each other and trusted each other. It was a great place to grow up. The drive here today brought back a lot of memories.”