by Bob Hahn (class of 1981)
The key words in that description were “Converse All-star basketball shoes”. He loved hoops, a much more popular sport and a lot more exciting and enjoyable than running around in circles gasping for what seemed your last breath. “I did no running the summer before high school; I was still focused on basketball with hopes of going far. I didn't go out for cross country freshman year and had no desire to run.” Three weeks into the season, Coach John Wilson heard that Bob was a decent runner and convinced him to give it a try with the argument that it would get him in great shape for basketball. Coach Wilson was a legendary prep basketball player for Paris, Illinois high school way back in the 1940’s. And that is exactly what they would do. Use cross country to get in shape for the basketball season. His team won the state basketball championship in 1946 and Paris also won the first 4 state championships in cross country from ’46 to ’49. The first practice, Bob could not run the whole workout. He had to walk. “I almost quit 3 or 4 times, but hung on long enough to make top 4 at the all-freshman county race. By the end of the season I was 2nd or 3rd man on varsity. ”Still hated it! So he played basketball in the winter and ran track in the spring. He did okay in the frosh-soph division, but did not win anything. “I think I ran a best of 4:53 in the mile. After freshman year, I still had the basketball dream and was actually getting better, so I had no intention of focusing on running. But two weeks into the summer break, I get a call from Roy Carey (a senior) and he asked, ‘I wonder if you would be interested in running a little with us this summer?’ I said ok. I had no idea what I was getting into. So every night Roy would pick me up and we would run from one of the upperclassmen's house. Roy, Tim Close and Joe O'Neill were the ones that made me start training.”
Bob went on to have a terrific collegiate career as well. It was no surprise that the “Hicks and Graves show” moved to the next level. “When I went to Auburn a lot of people thought that I would try to get out of Tom's shadow, but that wasn't the case. To us it was all about team and we really wanted to have some special teams at Auburn. Auburn had always had strong sprinters and we wanted to balance that with a strong distance program. We ended up with quite a few SEC Championships. Two in XC, three in indoor track and one in outdoor track. We just missed a couple more in outdoor track.”
But one of his biggest disappointments was that he could not break the elusive 4:00 barrier in the mile. “Breaking the 4:00 barrier is on every collegiate milers mind. The event was rarely run in college as things were going metric. It mainly became an indoor event as the 1500 was run outdoors. The best I got down to was 3:44.0, which converts to about a 4:01 I think. One of my great disappointments was that I couldn't get it a little lower.”
And now he has a family of his own and some of the kids are continuing the Hick’s running tradition. “The family is doing great. Allison came down last year with me to the Alumni meet and everyone really made her feel welcome. I wanted her to get a feel for our tradition and see how important it is to stay connected. She has had a good year running, although most of her spring meets were cancelled. We have purposely not trained very much; I don't want her burning out early. I'd like her to be coming on strong in about 3 years. This summer she will start training with the HS team even though she is just going into 8th grade. The best part is that she is very coachable and will heed strategic advice. My wife, Stephanie and I have been married since 2000 and we have 4 girls (Sarah 16, Allison 12, Julie 10, and Sydney 4). I think Sydney and Julie may have running potential. I also have a son from my first marriage who lives in Colorado. He is 23 and is starting Law School at the University of Denver in August.”
Bob Hicks has been a true ambassador for Sandburg Cross Country. He is truly a middle distance legend and we were blessed with his talents as an Eagle. And for those reasons, we would like to have him pioneer our Sandburg “Top Performance Video” section of the Sandburg runners Weebly site. We will be posting videos along with the records and have a category for big races that may not have necessarily broken a record, but were special never the less, so everyone can share the excitement of that particular experience. We could think of no better runner and person to lead the way than Bob Hicks!! Click here to see Bob talk about his 1977 State Championship mile race.