Blast from the Past: Ronnie Hicks
Published 12:58 am Wednesday, September 4, 2019
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Photo Contributed Ronnie Hicks inducted into the Carter County Hall of Fame by Kent Williams.
Photo Contributed Coach Ronnie Hicks and his 2006 Regional Championship team.
Photo Contributed Coach Ronnie Hicks and Norman Peters coached many winning teams in their time together.
Photo Contributed Coach Ronnie Hicks inducting Ashley Fine and Dawn Lowe into the Carter County Sports Hall of Fame.
Photo Contributed Coach Ronnie Hicks
BY C.Y. PETERS
Washington crossing the Delaware never meant much to me but it was one those things I was required to learn in school.
There was many math problems, science projects, English homework and words I had to learn to spell that many I still don’t know what they mean.
One of my greatest accomplishments was learning how to play chess. It wasn’t taught during class time but a special teacher took his time not only to teach me how to play chess but basketball as well in his off time.
He came to Unaka Elementary as I was entering the fifth grade and I was one of the students selected to be in a split 5th and 6th-grade class. It was his first year teaching and when he arrived he was also working part-time at a funeral home, and the stories he could tell.
Ronnie Hicks would go on to be a great basketball coach at the middle and high school levels but would make a name in softball as one of the greatest coaches ever in Carter County and East Tennessee.
Hicks spent 33 years in the coaching business, 31 at Unaka, and two at Cloudland. His records may never be broken winning 27 Conference Championships, 27 District titles, 21 Regional Crowns and took seven teams to the State Tournament.
Hicks coached at Unaka and Hunter Elementary and started a girls softball program at Unaka High in 1979. There were not many small schools that had softball at the time, so Hicks had to schedule mostly large schools like Kingsport.
His team went 0-8 but what would come in years later would make him a legend in Carter County Sports.
His final records have him winning 618 games with a .665 winning percentage. By 1981 he had the program in full swing winning Unaka their first conference, district, regional and placed third in the state.
Hicks stated, “Kim Holly was his first great pitcher and was a terror on the mound. Then Christine Bowers was next and she had never pitched before her first day at practice. I lined up everyone and made them throw underhanded to each other. She was the only one that threw straight. She was a freshman and Holly was a senior.”
Ashley and Brittany Fine were also great players. Ashley took Unaka to the first eight-team State Tournament.
Hicks took four teams to the State Tournament before they went to the eight-team finals. Ronnie coached so many good pitchers and players it’s impossible to name all of them, but he put the best players in the best positions they could play.
Ryann Musick won 30 games and never gave up a run in the District or Regional Tournament. No one in Class A scored on her the entire season and the Lady Rangers went 30-8.
At Cloudland where he coached for two years, he recorded the school’s first winning season and won 28 games in two seasons.
He returned to Unaka in 1983. His team’s played in every sub-state game until 2011. He won more than 20-games a season 21 different times.
Megan Heaton, a former player, said she heard Coach Hicks say, “This ain’t Little League” many times. Dawn Lowe, a former player said, “He was always supportive on and off the court and field. He was determined to get the best out of each and every player. I learned lots of life lessons and thank him for all he has done for me and so many players.”
Ronnie’s trophy room looks like Brumit’s Sports Shop.
To go along with softball, he has many trophies from District and Regional’s in middle school and high school basketball. He won too many to count basketball titles with the Lady Rangers and Cloudland Highlanders.
Ronnie led Unaka to three straight 20-game winning seasons on the hardwood. He was Smoky Mountain Coach of the Year three times, several Elizabethton Star and Johnson City Press Coach of the Year awards, he was a two-time Coca-Cola Regional Coach of the Year.
The softball field at Unaka is named in his Honor the Ronnie Hicks Field. The list goes on and on as Hicks is truly one of the best coaches in Tennessee.
Softball great Jarfly Dugger said, “Hicks always played to win,” and worked hard with his teams.
“Ronnie was probably one of the most historical coaches of fastpitch softball in our time,” said former player Christina Bowers Lewis. “He always knew how to field a team with good solid talent that could compete at championship levels. It was a privilege not only to play for him but to also have him as a friend.”
“Ronnie is such a competitor, his teams were always ready to play,” said Elizabethton softball coach Ken Hardin. “He created a family with each of his teams and they always played hard for him and their teammates.
“His gatekeeper was always his biggest fan ( Mrs. Hicks). Coach Hicks helped to make girls softball a great sport in our area,” Hardin said.
Ronnie Hicks has accounted for several people going into the Carter County Sports Hall of Fame – Angie Peters (2012), Kim Holly (2014), Ashley Fine (2016), Dawn Lowe (2016).
He coached with Don Parkey inducted in (2017), Norman White (2017) and Larry Bowling (2017). In 2018 Ryann Musick was inducted. Hicks was one of the first members inducted in 2012.
