First-year Waukomis HC Allen Hicks leads resurgent Chiefs to regionals

WAUKOMIS — The practice gym is practically empty, but Allen Hicks speaks as if he’s trying to cut through the noise of a packed arena.

He paces the court’s sideline during a situational scrimmage — one side playing with a double-digit lead and the other tries to cut it down — while throwing out different instructions to his players.

It’s just after 2:45 p.m., but the Waukomis Chiefs are playing with game night intensity.

“It’s not what you do,” Hicks said during a break in Tuesday’s practice. “It’s how you do it.”

Under their first-year head coach, the Chiefs do it a lot differently these days, especially when it comes to practice. They play fast and physical, and as a result, the program’s seen a resurgence.

The Chiefs are 16-9 and have their first winning record in four seasons. They’ve won nearly as many games this year (16) as the last three years combined (18).

The Chiefs’ success, especially their 7-1 start to the season, is a surprise to many.

“It was kind of an awakening,” junior Cooper Wieden said, adding he didn’t even realize Waukomis had gotten off to such a good start at the time.

“We were just playing basketball,” he said.

At this point last year, Waukomis was 9-16. It finished the last month of the regular season going 2-11 before being eliminated from the Class A Regional tournament with a 34-point loss to Hydro-Eakly.

Hicks, a Waukomis native, knew what he was getting when he became the head coach of a program that had only won 10 games in the previous two seasons. Prior to accepting the head coaching job, he made calls to area coaches.

Pioneer head coach Brady Maxwell, Drummond’s Brent Rousey and Ringwood’s Nathan Pearson were just some of the coaches Hicks called to get a sense of the Waukomis program.

“(Coaches) told me they were raw, young talent, but there was definitely something to work with,” Hicks said.

The scouting reports proved true when Hicks and the Chiefs played summer ball.

“There was young talent to work with,” Hicks said. “It just needed to be matured a little bit.”

Wieden said the summer is when Hicks gained more confidence in the team, adding the bond between the players and their head coach grew stronger since then.

After football ended, Hicks was able to get a better idea of his entire roster and begin the process of setting a new foundation. The first step in doing that was establishing discipline.

Hicks made sure the Chiefs understood what time they needed to be on the floor for practice, what they needed to wear to practice, and making sure if they had to miss, they report to him.

“That’s the type of stuff that doesn’t seem like a big deal in some people’s eyes, but it’s a real big deal in mine,” Hicks said. “It’s just part of laying that foundation that a coach and a team can stand on.”

Hicks also installed the four-out-one-in motion offense, a system he brought over from Glencoe where he served as an assistant coach for 11 years. It’s a system that relies heavily on high ball movement and bringing diverse patterns on the floor so opposing defenses don’t get comfortable.

It’s also an up-tempo system, a stark difference from the offense Waukomis was used to running.

“We probably put up around 80 more shots per game now,” senior Kean Eck said.

“We used to player slower to take more control over the clock,” Widen said. “Now, we’re just wanting other teams to play it slow while we play fast.”

But Eck said the team adapted to the new offense in the first week, which resulted in the Chiefs’ eventual 7-1 start.

This year, the Chiefs went 8-7 in the final 15 games leading up to the district tournament and upset then-No. 18 Ringwood with a 57-52 win during that run. Plenty of work has been done to get Waukomis to this point, and that work begins in the practice gym.

“I believe practice has definitely been a huge asset because even in practice, we don’t have necessarily a light day,” Wieden said.

“It goes back to the whole, ‘practice how you play,’” Eck said. “We don’t slow down in practice. We don’t slow down in games.”

Just like last season, the Chiefs head to Shattuck for the Class A regional tournament after going 1-1 in the district tournament. But this time around, Waukomis is in regionals with a better record and more confidence.

Waukomis faces Laverne at 3 p.m. Thursday in an elimination game of the regional consolation bracket. If the Chiefs win, they face the loser of Garber and Texhoma. If the Chiefs lose, their season ends.

“I feel like we’re a lot closer than we have been in the past,” Eck said. “I feel like all of us know we can actually do something this year, and that boosts our confidence, even more, going into this postseason.”