Story By Jason Bowen
Glen Hicks stood in the pathway between the bleachers leading to the North Sand Mountain boys basketball locker room/coaches office surrounded by a number of his former players and assistant coaches.
The conversations were story after story, an extended stroll down memory lane.
“It’s truly family up here,” Hicks said. “When I come back here, it’s like I never left.”
And though its like that most times when Hicks returns for a North Sand Mountain basketball game, this day was a little more special for the Jackson County Sports Hall of Famer.
On this day — Jan. 17, 2026 — the gymnasium that Hicks’ NSM varsity boys basketball teams packed out for 25 years was about to be dedicated as Glen Hicks Gymnasium.
“It’s the greatest honor I’ve ever had,” Hicks said.
Hicks coached NSM for 25 seasons with a year as the head coach at Wallace State Community College in between. He retired from the Alabama Education System after the 2002-03 season, then spent 12 seasons as the head coach at Dade County High School just across the Alabama-Georgia state-line in Trenton, Georgia. After a season as head coach at South Pittsburg (Tennessee) High School, Hicks unretired in Alabama and coached Fort Payne from 2017-19 before closing his career as the head coach at Sylvania the previous two seasons before stepping down last spring.
“Over the decades of coaching in Alabama, (Hicks) built programs that inspired communities and shaped the lives of countless young people,” NSM administration declared during its dedication of Glen Hicks Gymnasium.
Hicks won 765 games during his four-decade plus coaching career. In Alabama, he led North Sand Mountain to three state tournament appearances along with eight Jackson County Tournament championships, eight area tournament titles, seven Sand Mountain Tournament championships as well as nine “Sweet 16” appearances and four “Elite 8” appearances. He led NSM to two Northeast Regional appearances after the AHSAA adopted that format in 1994, including a regional runner-up finish during his final NSM season in 2002-03. He then took Fort Payne to the Class 6A Northeast Regional during the 2018-19 season. Hicks was the Class 2A Coach of the Year in 1993 and his run-and-gun NSM teams twice led the nation in scoring, 1990 and 1993.
In Georgia, Dade County made nine state tournament appearances, won seven sub-region titles and one region championship during Hicks’ head-coaching tenure while making four “Sweet 16 appearances and one “Elite 8” appearances. He was named state coach of the year in 2016.
NSM hosted Dade County on the night the gymnasium was dedicated in Hicks’ honor, and the coach said having those two teams playing one another the night he received the honor made the moment sweeter.
“I really appreciate them doing it at the NSM-Dade game because I’ve got players from both sides,” he said. “To see so many of them here tonight, it makes me feel good.”
Hicks’ teams were known for their ultra-fast tempo and high-scoring ways.
“I know a lot of people still think about how we played,” Hicks said. “We were doing this before just about anybody besides Q.K. Carter (at Scottsboro) in the 1960s and 70s. It gave us kind of an identity and our kids were proud of it.”
Hicks is proud these days of the job his son Cole is doing as NSM’s head coach.
“I’m so much more proud of Cole and wht he’s done that what I did,” he said. “When he made the statement at Media Day this year that ‘I don’t want to let my dad down,’ well he couldn’t, but to hear that, that that meant something to him like that, meant a lot to me. I love watching him coach.”
Cole was there for most Glen’s coaching journey, serving as a manager for some of those great NSM teams, then playing for his father and helping him win his final Jackson County title in 2003 before serving as an assistant coach for his dad for many seasons at Dade County.
“For me to have been along for the ride, it was awesome,” Cole Hicks said. “He’s very deserving. He built NSM basketball and started the tradition here.”
Glen Hicks said the having his name on the gymnasium at NSM is an honor he shares with all of his former players and assistant coaches.
“This means I had a lot of really great players and great assistant coaches that I couldn’t have done it without,” Glen Hicks said. “We had some good teams, great teams, some that struggled to break even. But I never had a team that didn’t try to do what we ask them to do. I’m thankful for everyone of those guys.”
