ROANOKE, Va. – While he may not have sent a message yet...former Cave Spring Head Basketball Coach, Billy Hicks, is still processing his former standout player taking the head job with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Rumors have been brewing for weeks about whether the former Cave Spring basketball phenom would take his first stint as an NBA head coach. However, on Thursday JJ Redick agreed to terms with the team.
10 News spent the day trying to get reactions from people who knew Redick the best while he played at Cave Spring. Perhaps the second best person to talk to (besides JJ himself) is his head coach, Billy Hicks.
“To have someone that I got to share a lot of time with, get to know and coach...be in that position is just a really...it’s really cool. I’m a fan now,” Hicks said.
Redick ended his career at Cave Spring as the leading scorer in Group AAA history with 2,214 points and scored a state tournament record 43 points in leading the Knights to their first-ever state championship in 2002.
While the championship game would be the last time Hicks coached Redick, they still stay in touch.
“I haven’t sent anything to him today,” Hicks said. “I did send a text to him a couple of weeks back. When he was playing for me, PH was our big rival. I told him, ‘You know I hate purple’, just let me know if I need to get some purple in my wardrobe. He laughed at it, so I knew then he was probably serious about it because otherwise, he would have said you don’t need to get any purple.”
Hicks didn’t even know about the news at first since he was on a plane. He figured he would get a text from his wife or kids, but when he exited the plane he was flooded with texts from people and reporters asking for interviews.
10 News asked coach whether he saw Redick ever taking a coaching job.
“He definitely has the coaches mentality, the coaches mind. He’s always thought the game, he’s a deep thinker...really intelligent human being. Always knew x’s and o’s. You could tell him something one time and he got it. He didn’t just understand the play, like ‘Okay the play call is for me to go here,’ he understood the concept,” Hicks responded.
Now perhaps a household name here in the Roanoke Valley will become a name known across the nation.
“The great thing now is all the Roanokers can say this, this is our guy,” Hicks said. “The star of the Star City right and nobody from this area has got a bigger job than what he has.”