7 Milt Ticco

Milt Ticco was born Milton Mitchell Ticco on September 22, 1922, in Jenkins, Kentucky, to Michael G. and Polexini Papanghi Ticco. His parents were Albanian immigrants who operated a popular restaurant in the eastern Kentucky coal town. Known locally as “Milty,” Ticco became a standout basketball player at Jenkins High School; at age 15, he demonstrated his scoring ability by accounting for 13 of the Cavaliers’ 19 points in a loss to Whitesburg.

Because freshmen were not eligible for varsity competition, Ticco spent the 1939–40 season with Kentucky’s undefeated freshman team, which won all 16 of its games. He was one of the Kittens’ leading offensive threats, scoring 13 points in a victory over Greenbrier Military Academy and sharing team-high honors with 10 points against the Berea freshmen.

Ticco joined Adolph Rupp’s varsity as a sophomore in 1940–41 and immediately became an important offensive weapon. The 6-foot-3, 190-pound left-hander scored 102 points in 17 games. His finest performance came against Xavier on January 9, 1941, when he put 30 points through the basket. Four were disallowed for traveling, leaving him with an official career-high 26—more than half of Kentucky’s total—in a 48–43 victory.

As a junior in 1941–42, Ticco scored 128 points in 22 games and helped Kentucky reach new heights on the national stage. That team, remembered as “Rupp’s Rifles,” swept the Southeastern Conference Tournament and advanced to the NCAA Tournament, becoming Kentucky’s first Final Four team. Ticco was one of the 10 players on the program’s first NCAA traveling squad, and his shooting helped Kentucky rally past Illinois in the Eastern Regional before the Wildcats fell to Dartmouth.

Ticco enjoyed his finest season as a senior in 1942–43, leading Kentucky with 233 points in 23 games and averaging 10.1 points. He earned second-team All-SEC and All-SEC Tournament honors and was selected as a third-team All-American by Pic magazine. One of his defining performances came against Xavier on January 9, 1943, when his distinctive one-handed angle shots produced a game-high 15 points in a 43–38 victory that gave Rupp his 200th career win.

Across three varsity seasons, Ticco scored 463 points in 62 games. His other memorable senior performances included 17 points against Fort Knox, 16 in a 60–55 victory over Notre Dame and 17 at Tennessee. Although his totals came during a much lower-scoring era, his development from a promising reserve into Kentucky’s leading scorer and an All-American made him one of the program’s most important players in the years immediately preceding World War II.

On campus, Ticco was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and also excelled in baseball, captaining Kentucky’s team in 1943. After graduating, he served approximately two and a half years with the United States Army in Europe. He captained and led the Fort Benning battalion basketball team in scoring before joining the 71st Infantry Division team, which compiled a 35–5 record, won an Army championship and lost the European Theater championship game in double overtime at Nuremberg, Germany. Among his teammates were future Cincinnati Reds pitcher Ewell “The Whip” Blackwell and future Kentucky player Dale Barnstable, whom Ticco later recommended to Rupp.

Following his military service, Ticco played professional basketball in the National Basketball League, a predecessor of the NBA. He averaged 11.3 points for the Youngstown Bears in 1946–47 and earned second-team All-Rookie honors before playing for the Flint Dow A.C.’s, Indianapolis Kautskys and Sheboygan Red Skins. He later competed in the American Basketball League with the Wilkes-Barre Barons and the Allentown and Carbondale Aces.

A left-handed first baseman, Ticco also spent seven seasons in professional baseball in the Cincinnati Reds and Brooklyn Dodgers organizations. He compiled a .278 batting average with 41 home runs and 130 doubles in 776 games, concluding his career by batting .309 for the Asheville Tourists in 1952. After retiring from professional sports, he worked in sales and raised two sons with his wife, Ramona Ford Ticco. He died in Greenville, South Carolina, on January 26, 2002, at age 79.