Marc Hicks sits in a golf cart with his right arm draped over the steering wheel and reading glasses sliding down his nose. Standing for two hours of practice at Davis High would be asking too much of the legs that made him the most coveted high school running back in the country 41 years ago.

His left knee has been replaced, the right will be before long and surgery to fuse three vertebrae in his lower back will follow. Hicks played in pain and now lives with it, a somber souvenir of a career that began with so much promise and ended with Hicks limping away to wonder what went wrong.

Hicks has worked in campus security in the Davis Joint Unified School District for “33 years. Could be 34. I don’t know. I’m old now.” The 60-year-old has had an interest in being the head coach, especially after seeing so many come and go, but there has always been an insurmountable hurdle. 

Agonizing pain keeps Hicks in the golf cart, which he maneuvers from one drill to another during practice. The players know better than to think their first-year head coach pays more attention to steering than critiquing them for proper technique and pointing out any missteps.

His golf cart is not equipped to lift off, so it will keep Hicks grounded in his first season at the helm. He might have been the talk of Davis in 1985, but anybody who thinks Hicks can cure all that ails the Blue Devils is dreaming. Hicks does not have a quick fix for a program that is 9-40 since 2021.

None of the hundreds of recruiting letters Hicks received as a Davis High senior will do him much good if the Blue Devils take yet another turn for the worse. All the excitement in Berkeley after he signed with Cal will not prevent Davis folks from turning on him, especially those younger than 60.

“The letters are special from way back then. Things have changed obviously over the many years to now,” said Hicks, who fell out of favor with Cal head coach Joe Kapp after rushing for 573 yards as a freshman. Hicks transferred in 1987 to Ohio State, but he was useless after breaking his wrist.

All his brief stints with the BC Lions in the Canadian Football League and the Orlando Thunder in the World League did was prolong the inevitable. A career in professional football was not to be. A serious knee injury on the final day of the Thunder’s training camp in 1991 was Hicks’ parting gift. 

Hicks wore a Thunder T-shirt to a recent practice at Davis High. That it still fit after 35 years speaks to Hicks not letting his body go even though it has failed him on more than one occasion. If he has to sit in a golf cart, if he needs glasses to read the practice schedule he creates each day, so be it.

One minute spent being bitter, one minute of regrets, one minute spent wondering what might have been would be a waste of time. Hicks is preparing for Friday’s season opener against Pioneer at Ron and Mary Brown Stadium. His debut will be against a team that thumped Davis 43-0 last year. 

Win or lose, Hicks will be with his wife and three children. He will get out of bed Saturday morning and wonder what is for breakfast. His mind will be filled with all the Blue Devils did right Friday and where they fell short against the Patriots. And when Hicks eventually looks in a mirror, he will smile.

“I’m very at peace with my life. I think I’ve lived a pretty good one,” Hicks offered. “I’ve got a great family, I’ve got a great home and I have great friends. I’ve got no complaints.”