The Southwest Times

Sunday, November 10, 2002

Joel Hicks decides it's time to leave coaching
DAN CALLAHAN
Locker Room

Today is a story I never wanted to write.  Last Friday's game was a game I never wanted to see played.  This last week was a week I never wanted to deal with.  I knew following the season's last game that it was Joel Hicks' last game as head coach at Pulaski County High School.

It's been close on a couple of other occasions, but it didn't happen.  This time it did.  He says it's time.  I don't think it's time and never will be the time, but it's his decision.  I just respect him as a man and as a coach so much that I hate to see his involvement with the young men in Pulaski County end, and my relationship with him change.

Those closest to Hicks, and I have known him since I was 16 years of age and a student at Big Creek High School in War, West Virginia, have always known him as a person that's all out.  He took every game like it was a civil war.  he worked hard, sometimes too hard.  Hicks cannot lose.  He simply cannot deal with it.  This is likely the main reason why he didn't lose very often over his career.

But it is also the thing that likely ends this career a little sooner than maybe it should.  Some of us have long pushed Hicks to back off some, to relax, and surrender as much of the workload as possible.  He did to a degree, but it's simply not his nature.  He pushes himself as hard as any coach ever could.

It reminds me of the opening for the old "Wide World of Sports" show.  It talked of "the spirit of victory" and "the agony of defeat."  Hicks will tell you without hesitation that the fear of defeat was his biggest motivator.  It wasn't always the thrill of victory, and that satisfaction was never close to the magnitude of "the agony of defeat."

But it was in early March in the year 1979 that he spent the entire evening in my home.  Early the next morning he was to meet with then Superintendent of Schools Kenneth J. Dobson.  The deal was ironed out and a special relationship between these two men began immediately.  The respect each had for the other was obvious.  Those two have always been on the same team.

Later that month on a windy, cold night Hicks met for the first time with the Pulaski County community in the theater at the high school.  he was formerly introduced as the school's new head football coach.  He came to PCHS after having been an offensive coach for the previous two years at West Virginia University.

He was asked many questions that evening form a very large gathering.  He realized that very first night that football was important to Pulaski County.  He liked that.  He made no promises but one when he was asked repeatedly about winning championships and such.  "I'm coming to Pulaski County to win football games. If we win enough of them, the rest will take care of itself," said Hicks.

He certainly kept that promise.  Hicks averaged winning almost nine games a season for 24 years.  His marks are unmatched during that stretch.  They are listed in today's front page story.  His career ends with 209 wins at Pulaski County, and 301 for his 36-year head coaching career.

There was one other promise he made.  He promised Dobson he would never leave Pulaski County until he had a winning program established and firmly in place.  I guess you could say he kept that promise too.  He never promised how long he would stay, but he stayed 24 seasons, and Cougar football fans have been rewarded for his tireless effort and loyalty.  Hicks could have left on a number of occasions, but his decision almost always came back to the same thing.  He talked of having seen the bright lights, and not needing to see them again.  He talked of coaching a football team in a rural community that did not always furnish him with the best talent, but always there were young men who wanted to win and were not afraid to work hard to attain their goals.  His thoughts always took him back to Pulaski County.

Hicks said the night after he won his 300th career game over William Byrd in Dobson Stadium, that he was blessed to have landed in Pulaski County because it had kids that would work hard and get themselves prepared to play football in a manner that he loved to coach and suited his philosophy of the game.  There are approximately 2,000 young men that were blessed to have been a part of his program at Pulaski County High School.

But, for the most part at least, that relationship will come to a close.  It will take a while to adjust, and Hicks knows that.

He has pledged his total help and support and there can be no doubt of that.  He wants to help the remaining staff.  Those men are very important to him, and are some of his closest friends.

Most of them played football for Pulaski County for him.  He wants to see them taken care of, and he wants them to continue to have the opportunity to be successful, and without a doubt, he wants somebody off that staff to be the next head coach.

He is extremely serious when he says it is vital that the "Pulaski County family" remain in place.  There is a great deal of tradition in that coaching office and it needs to stay exactly where it is.

Hicks will work one more year for the Pulaski County School System and then retire at age 62.  he has earned the opportunity to rest.  He has pushed himself far beyond the normal capacity over a 38-year coaching career in all areas, mentally, physically, and emotionally.

It is indeed now time for the old coach to relax, and no man can say he does not deserve the opportunity.

But Hicks will hang around Pulaski County, and he will be a handy guy to call on too.

He will continue to work with the kids in the fitness center with their off-season training and help take some of the work load off the new staff, and he has already said that he will be happy to scout in the future.  He feels he can be a better help working for the Cougar staff on the road as opposed to sitting in the stands watching it.

It is also a way for him to help the staff deal with the comparisons that are certain to come, an issue he will avoid.

I would say he would make a pretty good scout.  I've always felt he was pretty good with the X's and O's.  He is certainly qualified.

Hicks wants to continue to be a positive and supportive member of the Pulaski County community.  His and his wife Melinda plan to live their retirement right here.  That is further evidence that Hicks and Pulaski County are indeed a good match.

But this will be a tough time, at least for a while.  I remember the first night Hicks ever visited the Dublin area.  I had told him the winter climate around here was not bad at all.  We met, it was 18 degrees and the wind was howling.  he complained.  I laughed, and asked him what he thought of the weather?  He said "it felt a little bitter."

As we head into yet another winter, it feels a little "bitter" again to me, but at these times, you need to remember all the good things, and there have been so many good times.  I remember Hicks' first game as if it was yesterday.  I remember almost all of them in between as well.  It's been a marvelous 24-year run, but it seems it has gone by so fast.

But a lot of us that were around in the beginning and are still around today, are also one other thing, 24 years older, and so is Hicks.

He gave Pulaski County everything he had to give for those 24 years, and it gets harder to recover.  This is the end of a great era, one that maybe will never be matched again in Pulaski County.  Joel Hicks is the winningest and most successful athletic coach of any sport during any era in the history of our county.

And he has decided that it is in his and the program's best interest too, that it is time for him to retire from coaching.  He's the best I've ever been around.  Like many of you, I treasure every memory over the last 24 years, but now it is over, and it's hard, because there's nothing left to say to Hicks, but "thanks for the memories."

Joel Hicks came to Pulaski County in March, 1979.  he told us what he was going to do.  he did it.  And that simple statement tells it all.  He made us a promise.  He kept it.

I made him a promise.  I hope he feels I kept mine.  It's not been great.  It's been fantastic, and I know that I speak for thousands in the Pulaski County community when I say;

"Joel Hicks, thank you very, very much."