It hasn’t been the smoothest four years of basketball at Mohawk Trail Regional High School for Jackson Hicks.
His freshman year started off strong, with the team going 14-6 and making the tournament. Hicks was called up to varsity when they made the tournament, getting valuable experience for the postseason.
That’s when things started to go downhill. Hicks’ sophomore year produced five wins under former coach Fred Redeker, who was in his final season as athletic director and coach at the school. Then, last season, Mohawk had another disappointing season under first-year coach Jeff Herd, going 1-19.
This winter, Darren Schmidt, a Mohawk grad, was selected to lead the program. With three coaches in three years, Hicks felt it was hard to find stability, which caused some of the rough seasons.
“It’s been up-and-down,” Hicks said of his experience at Mohawk. “Having all those different coaches made for rocky starts for me because I always felt the pressure that I had to show what I could do on the court, unlike other teams where you kind of show up and am like ‘well, the coach knows what I can do, I just have to do it.”
This past season, Mohawk finished with six wins, a step in the right direction. Hicks knew it wouldn’t be an easy season, but was pleased to see the strides the team made. Mohawk was playing meaningful games in the final week of the season as it had a chance to at least to finish second in the Hampshire League North, which would have qualified the team for the tournament even with a sub-.500 record.
“Going into the season, making the tournament wasn’t something I expected to happen,” Hicks said. “My goal was ultimately to do better than we did as a junior. I feel like that was definitely reached considering we were only a few games out of the tournament. I was pretty happy with how things turned out.”
Hicks was one of three seniors on the team this year, and was selected as a captain for the season.
Being one of the older players, Hicks attempted to instill a new culture within the team, something he feels he accomplished.
“Whenever I play basketball, my goal is to go out there and play as hard as I can and give whatever it takes to push the team forward,” Hicks said. “Not necessarily because I feel the pressure from the coach but because I feel I should try as hard as I can with whatever I do. I feel like some of that rubbed off onto the younger kids because as the season progressed, the young kids went out there and put everything out there on the court.”
Leading by example, Hicks, who led the team in scoring this season with 9.7 points per game, was able to push the sophomores and juniors to work hard and compete, something he hadn’t seen in the team the past two seasons. When the effort wasn’t there, the losses felt more demoralizing.
With those sophomores and juniors coming up to continue trying to push the program forward, Hicks hopes they can continue to show the effort they did this season.
“Those younger guys were able to notice what the seniors were doing in terms of putting effort and everything they had on the court because there’s only so much time you have to do it, so you have to make the most out of it. I feel like the fact that those sophomores and juniors realized that before they are seniors, I feel like they will incorporate that into next year and the following year.
“I take that as if we were almost able to step it up to almost making tournament this year. Making tournament the following year is possible, it’s just a matter of if the guys are able to make that happen next year.”
Hicks enjoyed his season under coach Schmidt, and sees him as a guy who can turn the program around. He liked how the coach was able to take the skills each player had and translate that onto the court, putting them in a position to succeed.
Tuesday’s game against Smith Academy marked Hick’s final high school basketball game, as he will attend UMass Amherst next year in pursuit of a career in medicine.
The final game gave Hicks mixed feelings, but he is walking away feeling he left the program in a better place.
“It was great to have everybody come out and support,” Hicks said. “My family made a couple signs and all my friends came out to support. It was weird to be like ‘wow this is the last time we’re ever going to come out here and play on this court.’ It was emotional.”