Ricky Leonard Stokes (born March 29, 1962) is an American athletics administrator and former men's

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

coach who is currently the associate commissioner of men's basketball for the

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twe ...

Player

Stokes played at

Highland Springs High School Highland Springs High School is a public high school located in the East End of Henrico County, Virginia. It was one of the first high schools established in the Greater Richmond Region. Replacement school After 70 years in its Oak Avenue fac ...

for Coach George Lancaster before committing to Coach

Terry Holland Michael Terrence Holland (born April 2, 1942) is an American college athletics administrator and former basketball player and coach. He is currently the emeritus director of athletics and special assistant to Chancellor Steve Ballard at East Caro ...

. As a point guard for the

Virginia Cavaliers The Virginia Cavaliers, also known as ''Wahoos'' or ''Hoos'', are the athletic teams representing the University of Virginia, located in Charlottesville. The Cavaliers compete at the NCAA Division I level ( FBS for football), in the Atlantic ...

, Stokes set the record for career games played with 134, a record that he still holds. The Cavaliers made the

NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams from ...

each year that Stokes was with the team and during the three years that Stokes played along the legendary

Ralph Sampson Ralph Lee Sampson Jr. (born July 7, 1960) is an American former professional basketball player. He is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. A phenom, three-time college national player of the year, and first overall selec ...

, the team earned a #1 seed.

Coach

Stokes was hired in 1999 by Jim Weaver, the new director of athletics at

Virginia Tech Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also ...

, to replace the fired

Bobby Hussey Bobby Hussey (April 2, 1940 – June 26, 2007) was an American college basketball coach for over 30 years. He served as head coach for 20 years at Belmont Abbey College, Davidson College and Virginia Tech, finishing with a career record of 311-268 ...

. In his first year as coach, Stokes brought the Hokies their first winning season since the departure of Bill Foster but that year would be his high water mark in Blacksburg. Beginning with the 2000–01 season, the Hokies departed the

Atlantic 10 Conference The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I. The A-10's member schools are located in states mostly on the United States Easte ...

and joined the much tougher

Big East The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and M ...

. Stokes was unable to recruit Big East level talent to Virginia Tech and the team's record suffered accordingly. The highlight of his four seasons at Tech were blowout wins over #18

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

and rival

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...

his final year. Stokes was dismissed after a third straight losing season and a 10–38 overall record in the Big East. In none of these three years in the Big East was Virginia Tech able to qualify for the conference post-season tournament under Stokes. After two years as an assistant coach at the University of South Carolina, Stokes was hired as the head men's basketball coach at

East Carolina University East Carolina University (ECU) is a public research university in Greenville, North Carolina. It is the fourth largest university in North Carolina. Founded on March 8, 1907, as a teacher training school, East Carolina has grown from its origi ...

after the 2004–2005 season. After compiling a 14–44 record in two seasons, Stokes chose to resign rather than accept an administrative position within the ECU athletic department. The

named Stokes the associate commissioner for men's basketball in 2010.

Head coaching record

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stokes, Ricky 1962 births Living people American men's basketball coaches American men's basketball players Basketball coaches from Virginia Basketball players from Richmond, Virginia Bowling Green Falcons men's basketball coaches East Carolina Pirates men's basketball coaches Point guards South Carolina Gamecocks men's basketball coaches Texas Longhorns men's basketball coaches Virginia Cavaliers men's basketball coaches Virginia Cavaliers men's basketball players Virginia Tech Hokies men's basketball coaches Wake Forest Demon Deacons men's basketball coaches