An only child, Joe Hites remembers the lonely days of growing up when his friends couldn't play outside. 

He retrieved wayward footballs in a neighbor's yard after throwing them against a round pine tree. He annoyed his parents by throwing baseballs at his garage door, aiming for the strike zone he painted.

But basketball was different. 

"I remember vividly asking my dad to put a basket above our garage and he did," Hites said. "And when you get good enough shooting a basketball and put enough backspin on it, that sucker will bounce right back to you."

Now the only child has spent 38 years as a basketball coach and 31 years as a teacher building a family larger than he could ever have imagined. 

Hites coached boys' basketball locally at Cheyenne Mountain from 2002 to 2009 and most recently at Vista Ridge from 2012 through this past spring.

He has now decided to hang up his clipboard, retiring from coaching, but not education, as he will serve as an assistant principal at GOAL Academy.

One could tell the story of Hites' nearly 40 years of coaching in terms of the Xs and Os: proper shooting technique and a Bob Knight-inspired motion offense. Or through the numbers: 470 victories, 19th on the Colorado High School Activities Association's all-time wins list, four state Sweet 16 and two Final Four playoff appearances.

But coaching basketballers, much like with many sports, is more about preparing students for life than for packed gymnasiums against rivals. 

That was as true back in 1987 when he coached his first game in Clarksburg, Calif., with the Lady Saints of Delta High as it is was in Vista Ridge's final game against Valor Christian in the state playoffs in March.

In fact, Julie Rieth, who played forward for Hites at Delta, just last month visited him in Colorado to help put on a basketball camp. 

Now retired herself, Reith still calls Hites her coach.  

And there's still pride in the way she speaks about her junior and senior seasons. She relishes memories of how her teams shut opposing offenses down, thanks in part to the game plan which included individualized letters from Hites, detailing each player's matchup and the weaknesses of the player they would guard. There's still pain in recalling that the '88-89 team went 24-1, with the heartbreaking loss occurring in the championship final.

"That one always sits with you for a long time," Reith said.  

Hites made the decision to call it a career about a month and a half away from the end of the Wolves' 2022-2023 season. In his final games, former players came out to see him off.

One player was Justin Cutts, Hites' first point guard from his tenure as a boys' coach at Del Oro in Loomis, Calif. Cutts is now the director of student services at a school district in Yuba City, Calif. He made his way out to Colorado Springs for the Wolves' final regular season game against Liberty. 

"I was there for your first game, only fitting I'm there for your last," Hites said Cutts told him.

Hites made Cutts an honorary coach for the team's game against the Lancers that evening. 

After coaching Del Oro from 1992-2002, Hites came to Cheyenne Mountain, where he made a profound impact on the program, and with Steve Johnson in particular.

Johnson graduated in 2006 and then played at Duke, where he was a walk-on with coach Mike Krzyzewski's program. Johnson won a national title with the Blue Devils in 2010.

Long before he mentioned memories of beating Lewis-Palmer or other notable opponents, Johnson spoke about how Hites' program trained him to be a better person in ways that would then make him a better basketball player.

Johnson recalls how in a huddle at just his second varsity practice during his freshman year, Hites taught him to command the defense with authority and project his voice. He remembers interviewing to be on varsity at Cheyenne Mountain all four years and wearing suits on game days. He said he felt comfortable walking on to a college program coached by one of the best basketball minds in the country because of how well his high school coach had prepared him.

But as with Reith and Cutts, the bond Johnson shared with this coach carried beyond graduation.   

After his mother's recent death, Johnson said he received a phone call from Hites expressing his condolences and reminiscing about his favorite memories of Johnson's mom. 

"For a coach that's out there and wants to just win at the expense of all the intangibles he or she can teach their players, then the relationship ends senior year of high school," Johnson said. "But for a coach that starts with really caring, has high standards because he wants to develop his kids, then there's a relationship and a mentoring and a coach-player relationship that doesn't stop after senior year."

It wasn't easy being on a Hites-coached team. That was the point. It was a challenge and, more importantly, intense. It wasn't tough love so much as "love tough," Hites said, but the process of bringing out the best in people is rewarding despite, and perhaps because of, how taxing it can be. 

Hites found his passion for mentoring and teaching in eighth grade thanks to the impact his physical education and English teachers had on him. To that end, Hites also has been a teacher for the last 31 years most recently focused on health and leadership. 

It's also why Hites knows he's on the right path as he prepares to be an assistant principal.

"I wanted to be able to take all the experiences I've had teaching and coaching and to have one more shot to be able to apply that to a different type of team," he said. "I think things happen for a reason. When I saw the mission statement for GOAL, their job posting, and their mission statement is to produce productive members of society, I thought this is meant to be."

Following his time at Cheyenne Mountain, Hites took a job at Lancaster High School in Ohio. Three years later, he returned to Colorado Springs to coach the Wolves.

When speaking about Vista Ridge, there's no bigger name that Hites helped to develop than forward Hunter Maldonado. A four-year varsity player and Gazette Peak Performer of the Year, Maldonado averaged 22.6 points a game his junior season and scored 29 in the state quarterfinals against top-seeded Lewis-Palmer to vault the Wolves to the Final Four in 2016, the second such finish in Hites' career.

Maldonado went on to a decorated career at the University of Wyoming, where he scored more than 2,000 career points and became the Cowboys' all-time scoring leader in Mountain West contests. Last week, he signed with the Oklahoma City Thunder to play in the NBA's Summer League. 

But ask Maldonado what sticks out about his time at Vista Ridge under Hites, and it's not just the 6 a.m. shooting sessions in the gym, but the community service time spent hosting Christmas parties with domestic violence survivors and their families at the school.

"(The parties) were surreal and, obviously, you get to be nice and make someone else's day, and there's nothing that can replicate that," Maldonado said.

The service didn't go unnoticed. 

Perhaps one of the most important things Maldonado did at Vista was be a part of Hites' basketball camp. Meeting Maldonado, Hites and other members of the varsity team was what made then fourth grader Tyson Monck decide he wanted to play basketball at Vista Ridge.

Monck, who was a senior guard in 2023, just wrapped his and Hites' final season at Vista Ridge during which he helped lead the Wolves to a 6A Sweet 16 berth. Monck led the Wolves in scoring, averaging just over 20 points a game. He'll attend Arizona Christian University to play in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) this fall. 

Being a member of the Vista Ridge team the past four years has been a nice full-circle moment for Monck, as he grew up in the system and then received the opportunity to give back. 

"Basketball is the side product of everything," Monck said of Hites' program. "It was more about the person than the player. It was always a brotherhood and a family that I think we truly developed. ... We always just felt like part of (Hites') family and he always welcomed us then as part of his own."

"There's still connections I have with parents, with kids from our camps that I still get to see when I go to the gym or when I'm out in public and that's how they see me as a Vista Ridge basketball player."

But the most important members of Hites' family are of course the ones born of blood, not basketball. Hites thanked his wife of 30 years, Karole, who has only known him as a coach for inspiring him to reach out to his basketball family regarding his retirement. Weathering his 12- to 15-hour days during the majority of the year, his family's strength made his passion possible. 

"I am fully aware of the strain that coaching can place on a marriage and a family, and I am very grateful for their support as I couldn’t have done it for this long without them," Hites said. "My role as ‘Dad’ to (my children) is by far the most important title I’ve ever had."