SACCO: Longtime understudy takes center stage

By Jim Sacco

Published: September 5, 2008

STUARTS DRAFT
Who says it’s all playbooks and the Good Book out in Stuarts Draft?
Sometimes the preacher teases the pupil. Sometimes your buddies give you a little gruff.
And the Cougars’ Michael Hicklin got plenty of teasing Friday night. He got it from his teammates, who stuck around and stood a few feet back as Hicklin, surrounded by pen-toting pencil necks, talked into notepads and tape recorders.
On the field it was easy to see why Hicklin, a 6-foot-1 junior, was all the rage. His five solo tackles, two fumble recoveries, one forced fumble and a pass deflection stood out like the smell of the fertilized fields that surround Stuarts Draft High School.
The win was just the icing on the cake, or the Oatmeal Cream Pie filling if you will, to keep the whole Draft theme flowing.
Heck, even his coach, Rod Bowers, took time to poke fun at the guy that led a Cougar defense to its second straight win over Augusta rival Riverheads.
“I tell him, ‘They’re running at you for reason,’ ” Bowers said. “ ‘And you need to shut it down.’ ”
The reasons are simple. This is the first time Hicklin, a baby-faced kid that probably can stack hay bails eight high, has been a factor on the football team. He’s a junior, not exactly a rookie, unless you’re stuck behind 14 seniors that bid the Cougars adieu after the 2007 campaign. You know, like Hicklin was.
“We just want to keep playing for those guys that left last year,” Hicklin said.
Yeah, forget that they kept you on the bench, or how they sent you to the football grow-up-a-bit gulag known as special teams.
So Hicklin shut his mouth, opened his ears and took it all in. The kind of kid, Bowers said, that sits in the back of the room and soaks it all up like red clay does to tropical storms.
“He played scout team every day of his life,” Bowers said. “It really paid off for him.”
And for the Cougars.
Hicklin’s helmet popped the ball out of Riverheads’ Cory Sandridge’s arms on the first drive of the game and he was heads-up enough to smother the ball himself.
Before the first half ended, he would corral another loose ball and break up a potential TD pass with Riverheads ready to punch the ball in.
“My teammate popped [the ball] out,” he said of his second recovery. “And I was going to get that.”
Bowers, after pointing out the collective effort of his defense, said it as simply as anyone.
“Mike stood out.”
And his teammates noticed, making faces and smart-butt comments to the junior the whole time he talked to the press while struggling to keep a straight face.
“Coach is always talking about playing with courage,” Hicklin said. “So I thought I’d play with courage tonight.”
He picked the right time and impressed Bowers, who once again kept it simple.
“Wow.”
Indeed.