Before the season, every member of the Air Force football team had to write down a goal for the 2016 campaign. Senior safety Brodie Hicks vowed to not miss a single tackle.
He has come awfully close.
Hicks has missed only two tackles this season, according to Pro Football Focus, the website that grades individual players in the NFL and FBS. Pro Football Focus went so far as to name Hicks, who has 70 made tackles, a first-team All-American among “Group of Five” players — ahead of fellow safety Weston Steelhammer, his much more heralded teammate.
Hicks’ accomplishments this season — which also include four interceptions, two forced fumbles, two blocked kicks and second-team All-Mountain West recognition — are a testament to how far he has come as a player. He switched from receiver to safety as a freshman, and the transition didn’t start out smoothly.
“He’s just made amazing progress over the last three years,” said Air Force coach Troy Calhoun, whose team faces South Alabama in the Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl on Friday at Arizona Stadium. “Any time you see a guy who’s improved that much, you know it means an awful lot to him.”
Asked this week if, as a struggling underclassman, he ever envisioned himself as an all-conference performer, Hicks laughed and said: “Not a chance.” He had the size (6-2, 200), athleticism and desire to succeed, but learning to play safety at a high level would take time and patience. Learning to defend the option — the offense run by rivals Army and Navy — was particularly vexing. Hicks remembers feeling lost.
“In the beginning, it was really rough,” he said. “I was always looking at one thing, then doing another. A lot of getting yelled at. But it all started to fall in place for me soon afterward.”
Hicks started 10 games as a junior, ranking fourth on the team with 67 tackles. He had three takeaways in Air Force’s 31-17 victory over Wyoming.
In 2016, Hicks took his game up another notch. Pro Football Focus said he was a more consistent performer than Steelhammer — one of four finalists for the Lott IMPACT Trophy — and had the best tackling efficiency in the nation.
Play that well, and the NFL will give you a look. Hicks isn’t sure the football life is for him.
Although Brodie and older sister Kiah — an All-America discus thrower at Colorado State — were accomplished athletes, academics always superseded sports in the Hicks household. Their father, Barry, is a chemistry and biochemistry professor at the Air Force Academy. Their mother, Dorothy, is a registered nurse.
(Dorothy might be the source of her kids’ athleticism, however: She was a handball goalkeeper in her native Cameroon.)
Brodie Hicks is majoring in civil engineering. He’d like to own a construction company someday.
At the moment, he’s leaning toward Friday being his final football game. “I just kind of want to get my life going,” he said.
Added his father: “Football is just one piece of his life. And it’s not really that important in the long run. I don’t think the NFL dream was ever really his dream. He wanted to play D-I football; that was important to him. Coming to Air Force, he’s grown into a position of leadership. He’s looking forward to serving his country.”
Brodie Hicks fulfilled a dream just by playing for Air Force. The first football game he ever attended was parents’ weekend at Falcon Stadium in 1995. He was about 6 months old.
When Brodie was a boy, Barry would cut his hair. He’d shave the Falcons’ lightning bolts into the sides of Brodie’s head.
This season, Air Force swept Army and Navy. Hicks had 13 tackles. He finally figured out the option.
