Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 10, 1993 TAG: 9312100372
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Long
Yet, there was one night several years ago, when a tired, frustrated Joel Hicks was ready to chuck his winning coaching career at Pulaski High School. He gave himself a second chance, and it was the best coaching move he ever made.
Saturday, Hicks will try to win his second consecutive state championship.
His Pulaski County Cougars are 13-0 and ranked No. 10 in the nation by USA Today as they head to Northern Virginia to play Annandale High School for the championship of Group AAA Division 6, comprising the state's largest schools.
It is a good time to be Joel Hicks.
"Things have gone as well as you could ever expect them to," he said.
Things have always gone well for Hicks. His teams had always won games, many more than they have lost. Yet, Hicks wanted something more.
Year after year, his teams were frustrated by heartbreaking losses in the playoffs. One of his teams lost a regional championship game when a punt snap flew out of the end zone for a safety. Another Cougar squad lost a playoff game when an opponent recovered its own fumble for a first down and marched for the winning score.
Finally, following a close season-ending loss to Salem in 1986, Hicks had seen enough. He resigned as coach. On the spot. He was through.
"I was upset," he recalled. "We got beat. I was burned out."
It was a decision made in haste, in the heat of the moment.
"I should never have made that decision during the season," he said. "I began to realize, if I was going to resign it would only be for a year or two, then I'd be a coach somewhere else. I knew if I was going to coach, I should coach where I wanted to coach."
After some soul-searching and some outright begging by friends and school officials, Hicks reconsidered a few months later. Only, it was a different Joel Hicks who returned.
"I realized I'd better change my attitude a little bit," he said. "I'm still pretty intense, but I've learned to relax a little bit."
There has been a lot to enjoy through the years. Hicks owns a 226-66-1 record in 30 seasons of high-school coaching, the last 13 at Pulaski, where he has gone 135-38, including a 13-0 mark heading into Saturday's games.
After building outstanding programs at two West Virginia schools - Big Creek and Woodrow Wilson - Hicks coached on the staff at West Virginia University, where he had played college ball. He came to Pulaski in 1979 to find a program that had won only 14 games in the five years since Dublin and Pulaski high schools consolidated.
Hicks combined discipline with a college program mentality to turn the Cougars around. Pulaski went 9-3 and made the playoffs his first year there. Pulaski has never had a losing record under Hicks.
An avid runner who has run in and finished five marathons including the 1993 Boston Marathon, Hicks has not been one to leave a job unfinished. He unretired seven years ago to do what was best in the long run. Now, he is saying the finish line nears.
"I can see the end," he said. "If coaching is like a thermometer, then the red line is getting near the top."
The next time he decides it's time to leave coaching, Hicks will go out on top.
\ JOEL HICKS\ PULASKI COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL\ \ AGE 52\ \ HIGH SCHOOL Richwood, W.Va.\ \ COLLEGE West Virginia University\ \ COACHING RESUME 1964-69, head football coach at Big Creek High in War, W.Va.; 1970-76 head football coach at Woodrow Wilson High in Beckley, W.Va.; 1977-78, assistant at West Virginia University; 1979-present, head football coach at Pulaski County.\ \ TEACHES Physical education.\ \ BIGGEST COACHING INFLUENCE "My wife, Malinda, and my parents [Charlie and Goldie, both deceased]. My wife has helped me get through some rocky times and kept me out of a lot of scrapes. My parents carried me to games when I was a kid, then when I got into coaching, they started watching my games. They wouldn't have been any prouder of me if I had been a doctor."\ \ GREATEST MOMENT IN COACHING "Winning the state championship last year."\ \ IF I COULDN'T BE A COACH I'D BE ". . . working with animals, maybe as a game warden. If I had never gotten an athletic scholarship, I'd probably be a bum or running a poolroom in Richwood, to be truthful."\ \ SPORTS PLAYED IN SCHOOL Football, basketball, baseball in high school; football in college.\ \ FAMILY Joel and Malinda Hicks have a son, T.J., and a daughter, Amy.
by CNB