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| Les Hicks was honored by the Black Legends at MU in 2005. |
In 2005, Marshall University’s Black Legends named Hicks as one of its 125 Most Impactful Black Athletes to compete for any of the school’s sports teams in the 20th Century. A news article about Hicks was published in “InSite,” a corporate publication of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, an industry leader in aerospace, defense, and information security.
Hicks, who earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Marshall, is a member of the environment senior safety engineer staff at Lockheed. Here's the "InSite" article in its entirety which was initially published in February of this year.
For most people, the tragic aircraft accident that killed players, coaches and fans of Marshall University’s football team on Nov. 14, 1970, is a tragic footnote in sports history, as well as the subject of the 2006 movie, “We Are Marshall.”
For Les Hicks, an environmental safety engineer with
Environmental, Safety and Health at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics’ Marietta
(Ga.) site, it is part of his
life story.
Hicks was a member of the Marshall football program in 1972 and 1973,
teams that took on the emotionally staggering task of re-establishing football
at the school. A 6-feet-5 defensive end on what was dubbed the “Young
Thundering Herd,” Hicks returned to the campus last October when the school
held a 40th anniversary reunion of the Marshall teams of the early ‘70s that
helped the school to rebuild the football program in the years immediately
following the crash. Hicks and his teammates were honored during halftime of
the 2011 Homecoming game against Rice
University.
The event allowed him to renew the bond he shares with
his former teammates. Recently, he recalled the life-altering decision to
choose Marshall over a range of
more prominent suitors, such as Notre Dame, Ohio State,
Iowa, Iowa State,
Nebraska, California,
Purdue, Illinois,
West Virginia and Syracuse.
“Right after high school, I played at Ellsworth
Community College in Iowa,”
Hicks said. “When Jack Lengyel, the Marshall head coach, recruited me, he said,
‘other schools may want you, but we need you.’ It was then that I decided I
needed to be at Marshall.”
Hicks would join an eclectic group of athletes recruited
from other sports, along with surviving freshmen players who didn’t make the
fateful trip, and a host of walk-ons. Their task wasn’t so much to win
championships, but to simply play competitively and position the program for
future success.
Along the way, the program endured its lumps,
recording consecutive 2-9 seasons in 1971 and 1972 before managing a slight
improvement to 4-7 in 1973. In an effort to get the program off the ground,
Hicks and his teammates made their fair share of sacrifices, gaining
perspective along the way.
“I learned to sacrifice my talent for the
betterment of the team by playing hurt and playing almost every position,
including defensive tackle at 212 pounds, which probably cost me a potential
career in the National Football League,” Hicks said. “On the football field, I
worked as if I was to play for 100 years, and I prayed as if I was to die
tomorrow.”
Although the program struggled, the efforts of Hicks and
his teammates eventually paid off. Marshall football would weather the lean years, grow stronger and ascend to
elite status in Division I-AA, winning national championships in 1992 and 1996,
along with eight conference titles. In 1997, the Thundering Herd would return
to Division I-A, college football’s highest classification, as a member of the
Mid-American Conference and would make eight bowl appearances from 1997 to
2009, winning six of the games.
Marshall football would send noteworthy players
to the NFL during that stretch, including wide receiver Randy Moss,
quarterbacks Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich and running back Ahmad
Bradshaw, among others.
All of that would not have happened without the
dedication and perseverance that Hicks and his teammates demonstrated during
the difficult years of rebuilding.
“The program could have gone away,” Hicks said.
“But we committed to the program, and later, guys like Moss, Pennington and
Bradshaw would come through. It gives you a great sense of pride knowing you
were part of the foundation of making that possible.”
During his time at Marshall
and in the years to follow, Hicks faced his share of adversity. He nearly died
after passing out during a weight training session in college due to undetected
viral hepatitis. He had a near-fatal blood clot after a knee scope in 1992. And
he was almost killed in a car crash in 2005, and later that year, suffered a
ruptured appendix.
Those travails, as well as the memory of those who
perished in the aircraft accident in 1971, taught him to treasure each moment
and each breath.
“I personally have learned that life is fragile. The loss
of the players’ lives taught me to never take life for granted, regardless of
my age. I felt privileged to be a Marshall
University football player, and I
felt an obligation to play through frustration, fatigue and a partially torn
deltoid muscle.
“I learned not to complain about anything because
millions would love to have the good and the bad of my life. I treat each day
as if it is my last day of living. As a result, I accomplish what I can by not
leaving anything for tomorrow.”
Hicks has been with Lockheed Martin for 27 years. His
experience at Marshall cultivated life lessons that he brings to work each day,
and, in fact, drove him to his career choice.
“One thing about safety is that there are no trade
secrets in this profession,” Hicks said. “The safety profession is a humanistic
way of extending Godly love to the workforce by helping them stay safe. I am
very passionate regarding the enforcement of safety rules because my father
lost his eye while working on a job, and I have had a couple of childhood
friends killed on the job.”
Hicks is actively engaged in the community, pouring the
benefit of his experiences into others’ lives on multiple fronts. He serves as
a mentor to troubled youth, teaches Sunday school to 4 to 7-year-old children at church and serves on the
Cobb County (Ga.) Literacy Council to decrease the dropout rate and to improve
literacy in the county.
Hicks still stays in touch with Lengyel and shares
something of a connection to the former coach with Tom Burbage, Aeronautics
executive vice president and general manager of F-35 Program Integration at t
Lockheed Martin.
Burbage played football at the Naval
Academy while attending there from
1965 to 1969; Lengyel served as athletic director at the academy from 1988 to
2001. Hicks and Burbage share occasional contact, discussing their football
playing days and how their respective alma maters’ teams are
performing.
In his wallet, Hicks keeps a lifetime pass to all Marshall
University athletic events, a
reward he and his teammates received for their crucial role in re-establishing
the football program. It’s a fitting visual reminder for Hicks, who maintains
an emotional tie to the program and university that did so much to form his
character and prepare him to touch the lives of others through service and
mentoring.
