Appalachian Figures

Milton Mitchell “Milt” Ticco grew up in the shadow of tipples and rail lines in Consolidation Coal Company’s planned town of Jenkins in Letcher County, Kentucky. The son of Albanian immigrants who ran a Main Street restaurant, he turned a coal camp childhood into an All American basketball career at the University of Kentucky, seasons in the rough early professional leagues, and six summers of minor league baseball in the Cincinnati Reds and Brooklyn Dodgers systems. By the time he died in Greenville, South Carolina, in 2002, his name was woven into the record books of both sports and into the memory of his mountain hometown.

An Albanian family in a Kentucky coal town

Jenkins itself was new when the Ticco family arrived. Consolidation Coal purchased the land in 1911 and built the town in stages, filling the valley with company houses, stores, churches, and recreational buildings tied to its mines. Photographs in the Jenkins, Kentucky Photographic Collection show the grid of streets, frame houses, and business blocks that shaped the world Milt grew up in.

According to a 1946 column in The Mountain Eagle, Michael G. Ticco came to the United States from Albania as a young man, spent several years working, then returned to Albania long enough to marry Polixeni (often rendered Polixeni or Polexini Papanghi in later records). The couple soon felt drawn back to the United States. Their eldest son John was born during the Atlantic crossing, and the family eventually settled in Jenkins, where Michael secured work and then opened a restaurant.

Local oral history and town histories place the Ticco restaurant on Main Street in the heart of the company town. In an interview reproduced in The History of Jenkins, Kentucky, longtime resident B. H. Crase recalled “a restaurant, managed by Mike Ticco” among the cluster of businesses that anchored downtown in the 1930s.

Church and family records round out the picture. Milt’s obituary in The Greenville News identifies him as the son of Michael G. and Polexini Papanghi Ticco and notes two sisters, Martha Tzetzo and Andigoni “Goldie” Steffa, both of whom later appear in Albanian Orthodox parish memorials. A 2015 oral history with Goldie Ticco Steffa in the Jenkins Coal Town Archaeology project captures her memories of growing up in Jenkins in an immigrant household, underlining how the family blended Albanian Orthodox traditions with the rhythms of a Kentucky coal camp.

Later genealogical compilations and death indexes list Milton’s birth on September 22, 1922, in Letcher County, with some sources naming Jenkins and others the nearby coal camp of McRoberts as his birthplace. Social Security death index entries, cited in Italian language reference works on his career, confirm his birth and death dates. Whatever the precise spot, he grew up in Jenkins, where his parents’ restaurant and their small Albanian Greek circle gave him a distinct identity in an overwhelmingly white Appalachian town.

Jenkins High School’s curly haired scorer

Company town life pushed children toward the school gym and ball fields as much as toward the mines. Jenkins High School, founded to serve the children of Consolidation Coal employees, quickly built a strong athletic tradition documented in the local history volume The History of Jenkins, Kentucky. In its athletics chapter, Kathy Sergent notes that by the mid 1930s a player named Ticco had become one of the program’s stars, earning a tournament most valuable player award in 1936 and leading optimistic talk about the 1937 to 1938 season.

Contemporary newspaper box scores from Jenkins and neighboring Whitesburg show a young Milt already dominating games. Later profiles in The Mountain Eagle and Mountain Sports Hall of Fame materials recall that as a fifteen year old in December 1937 he scored 13 of Jenkins’s 19 points in a narrow loss to Whitesburg, a stat line that likely comes straight from those late 1930s sports pages.

A 1935 Jenkins High yearbook entry that describes “Ticco and May, good prospects” for the freshman library group places him in school life beyond the gym, while later Mountain Eagle retrospectives list him among the standout Cavaliers of the prewar era and note his graduation with the class of 1939. From there, the path out of a coal town led through Lexington.

Rupp’s Rifles and an All American season

The University of Kentucky recruited Ticco as a versatile forward center. Big Blue History’s compiled statistics place him on the Wildcats roster from 1940 to 1943 at six feet three inches and about 190 pounds, listed as a forward center from Jenkins.

Game accounts preserved by BigBlueHistory.net and other college basketball archives show him growing into one of coach Adolph Rupp’s key scorers. In 1940 to 1941 he averaged roughly six points per game, and Kentucky papers highlighted a January 1941 win over Xavier in which Ticco poured in more than half of the Wildcats’ points. During the 1941 to 1942 season he again hovered around six points per game as Kentucky advanced to postseason play, with tournament writeups crediting his “magnificent goal shooting” in the NCAA regional round.

By his senior year, 1942 to 1943, Ticco had become the offensive focal point of what writers dubbed “Rupp’s Rifles,” a team later remembered as Kentucky’s first de facto Final Four squad. His scoring average climbed into double figures, and the Pic magazine service selected him for its third team All American list while Southeastern Conference selectors named him All SEC.

Ticco was not just a basketball star. University records and later biographies note that he lettered in baseball and captained Kentucky’s baseball team in 1943, a hint of the two sport professional career to come.

War service and a quick jump to the pros

Like many college athletes of his generation, Ticco traded a uniform with a number on the back for one with a serial number. Pro Basketball Encyclopedia and retrospective features agree that he entered the United States Army after graduation and spent roughly two and a half years in Europe during the Second World War.

He returned to civilian life in the spring of 1946. Less than a month later, according to a Mountain Eagle anniversary column and the Kentucky basketball site Wildcat World, he appeared in a Cincinnati Reds uniform at the Polo Grounds in New York during a May 14 game against the New York Giants. Local coverage treated this as a major league debut by a Jenkins boy, even though modern statistical databases list only minor league appearances for him in the Reds organization that year.

Double life in pro basketball and minor league baseball

In the fall of 1946 Ticco turned back to hardwood. Box scores and league summaries compiled at Basketball Reference and StatsCrew show him signing with the Youngstown Bears of the National Basketball League, one of the key predecessors to the modern NBA. At Youngstown he played forward guard, averaging around 11 points per game and scoring a team leading 406 points over 36 contests, good enough for inclusion on a league All Rookie second team selected by sportswriters.

The next season he split time among three NBL clubs. The Flint Dow A.C.s acquired him first; Pro Basketball Encyclopedia lists him at 5.8 points per game for Flint before a midseason move to the Indianapolis Kautskys and another shift to the Sheboygan Red Skins, where he finished the 1947 to 1948 campaign.Press reports out of Syracuse and Monroe, Wisconsin, on end of season awards and trades, cited in later research, confirm his presence among that generation of NBL role players.

After the NBL merged into the NBA, Ticco continued in smaller pro circuits. StatsCrew and Eastern Basketball League records track him through multiple seasons with the Wilkes Barre Barons of the American Basketball League, then into the Eastern Basketball League with the Pottsville Packers and Lancaster Red Roses in the early 1950s. In those leagues he typically averaged between five and seven points a game, a steady scoring forward in bus league gyms across Pennsylvania.

Summers belonged to baseball. Baseball reference tools show Ticco playing minor league ball from 1946 through 1952, primarily as a left handed hitting, right handed throwing first baseman. He appeared for clubs such as the Providence Chiefs in the New England League and the Sunbury Reds and Asheville Tourists in the Interstate and Tri State leagues. In 1952, with Asheville in the Tri State League, he posted one of his best statistical seasons, batting over .300 in nearly ninety games.

Later accounts from Wildcat World and local sports historians repeat a story, likely drawn from contemporary newspaper reports, that Ticco’s minor league baseball career ended after he fractured an ankle while sliding into home. Between that injury and the shrinking opportunities in post merger professional basketball, his days as a two sport pro wound down by the early 1950s.

Later years and family life

Ticco’s obituary in The Greenville News and the biographical note at Wildcat World sketch his post athletic life. After stepping away from professional sports he married Ramona Ford. The couple raised two sons, Michael and James, and Ticco built a second career in sales while the family lived first in western New York and later in Greenville, South Carolina.

The same obituary and associated funeral notices list survivors who underline how widely the Ticco family had spread from that original restaurant in Jenkins: sister Martha Tzetzo in Buffalo, sister Andigoni Steffa in Philadelphia, grandchildren in New York, and nieces and nephews scattered across the country. Parish memorial lists at St John Chrysostom Albanian Orthodox Church in Philadelphia, where Polixeni Ticco and other relatives were commemorated, show how tightly the family remained tied to their Albanian Orthodox identity even as they integrated into American life.

Milton M. Ticco died in Greenville on January 26, 2002, at age seventy nine. His death notice, like the sports encyclopedias built from box scores and league ledgers, remembered him as both an All American basketball player and a man who had played professional baseball in the Reds and Dodgers systems.

Why Milt Ticco’s story matters

Modern reference works on Jenkins list Milt Ticco among the town’s notable people, alongside musicians, military figures, and other athletes. Child friendly summaries of Jenkins history mention him as an All American from a coal town.

His story matters for at least three reasons.

First, it highlights how Appalachian coal towns were never as isolated as stereotypes suggest. The Ticco family’s path from Albania and Greece to a Letcher County restaurant, and then from Jenkins High School to the University of Kentucky and pro leagues in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas, shows the region woven into global migration and national sports networks.

Second, Ticco’s career marks an early chapter in the long line of mountain athletes who have shaped college basketball and football. Before televised March Madness and recruiting websites, a lanky forward from Jenkins played his way into All American lists and into what Kentucky historians now see as the program’s first Final Four team. The fact that he then had to juggle basketball and baseball in second tier leagues to make a living reminds us how precarious professional sports could be before modern salaries.

Finally, his life illustrates how coal town children navigated choices between the mines, the military, and other futures. Ticco’s generation saw their teens and twenties shaped by the Depression, war, and industry. That a son of an immigrant restaurateur in Jenkins could wind up facing DePaul in Madison Square Garden, guarding future NBA players in the NBL, and batting in long bus ride minor league parks speaks to the opportunities and limits that existed for talented young people from Appalachia.

For Jenkins, Kentucky, the name Milt Ticco still carries pride. It connects Main Street lunch counters and company built schools to the wider world of American sport, and it reminds us that the history of Appalachian coal towns includes not only disasters and strikes, but also the dreams of kids shooting at a gym rim after dark.

Sources & Further Reading

The Mountain Eagle (Whitesburg, Kentucky), Jenkins community column by Betty Jane Fugate, 30 May 1946. Describes Michael Ticco’s migration from Albania, the family’s return voyage with infant John, and the years operating a restaurant in Jenkins; later quoted extensively in retrospective features. themountaineagle.com+2wildcatworld.com+2

B. H. Crase, “Interview with B. H. Crase,” in The History of Jenkins, Kentucky (Jenkins Area Jaycees, 1973). Semi oral history that places “a restaurant, managed by Mike Ticco” in the Main Street business district along with the post office, beauty shop, and recreational building. Penelope+1

Kathy Sergent, “The History of Athletics in Jenkins,” in The History of Jenkins, Kentucky (1973). Compiles early Jenkins High School sports records and notes Ticco’s recognition as a tournament most valuable player in the mid 1930s. Penelope

University of Kentucky game accounts and box scores at BigBlueHistory.net, including summaries for Kentucky vs Great Lakes (March 14, 1942) and Kentucky vs Illinois and DePaul in 1942 to 1943. These contemporary writeups document Ticco’s scoring and role on Rupp’s teams. Big Blue History+3Big Blue History+3Big Blue History+3

Obituary, “Milton M. Ticco,” The Greenville News (January 28, 2002), preserved via Legacy.com. Provides vital statistics, lists parents Michael G. and Polexini Papanghi Ticco, summarizes his Army service and dual pro careers, and names his wife Ramona, sons, sisters, and grandchildren. Legacy+1

Kentucky Oral History Commission, Jenkins Coal Town Archaeology Oral History Project, interview with Andigoni “Goldie” Ticco Steffa (October 14, 2015). Goldie’s recorded recollections of growing up in Jenkins in an Albanian immigrant family under Consolidation Coal’s company regime. Kentucky Oral History+2Kentucky Oral History+2

Jenkins, Kentucky Photographic Collection, 1911 to 1930, University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center. Visual record of company housing, business blocks, and social life in Jenkins in the years when the Ticco family settled in town. UK Libraries+2historyinphotos.blogspot.com+2

The Sporting News Player Contract Cards, LA84 Digital Library, entry for “Milton Mitchell Ticco.” Original contract card documenting his professional basketball engagements and basic biographical data.

BigBlueHistory.net, “UK Career Statistics and Bio for Milt Ticco.” Summarizes his height, position, hometown, year by year scoring at Kentucky, and baseball captaincy, with citations to contemporary newspaper coverage. Big Blue History+1

Walter Cornett, “Milt Ticco,” Wildcat World (Kentucky basketball history site). Narrative biography that stitches together Kentucky statistics, Mountain Eagle columns, and later obituaries, including the oft repeated note that his parents ran a Jenkins restaurant and that he broke his ankle sliding into home near the end of his baseball career. wildcatworld.com+1

Basketball Reference and related NBL team pages. Player page for Milt Ticco and team summaries for the 1946 to 1947 Youngstown Bears, 1947 to 1948 Flint Dow A.C.s, Indianapolis Kautskys, and Sheboygan Red Skins provide compiled statistics drawn from league box scores. Stats Crew+3Basketball Reference+3Basketball Reference+3

Pro Basketball Encyclopedia, “MILT TICCO.” Season by season table synthesizing his college, NBL, ABL, and Eastern Basketball League scoring, including his All Rookie second team recognition in 1946 to 1947 and note of Army service from 1944 to 1946. Pro Basketball Encyclopedia

StatsCrew.com, “Milton Ticco basketball statistics.” Aggregates his professional basketball numbers across Youngstown, Flint, Indianapolis, Sheboygan, Wilkes Barre, Pottsville, and Lancaster, plus roster listings that record his Jenkins birthplace and Kentucky college background. Stats Crew+4Stats Crew+4Stats Crew+4

Baseball reference tools, including the player register page for Milton Ticco and minor league leaderboards for the New England, Interstate, and Tri State leagues. Document his minor league batting lines between 1946 and 1952, including a .309 season with Asheville in 1952. Baseball Reference+4Baseball Reference+4Baseball Reference+4

The Mountain Eagle “The Way We Were” column (May 25, 2016) and “Jenkins High School Cavaliers” feature (December 30, 2020). Retrospective pieces that retell Ticco’s journey from Jenkins High to Kentucky and the pro ranks, while pointing back toward original 1930s and 1940s coverage. themountaineagle.com+2themountaineagle.com+2

Wikipedia entries for “Milt Ticco” and “Jenkins, Kentucky.” Used here as roadmaps to contemporary newspaper citations, census figures, and sports databases, rather than as standalone authorities. Wikipedia+2Wikipedia+2