Against All Odds-4th Down and Forever: How the 1970 Marshall University Football Team Plane Crash Inspired Me - Softcover

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Les Hicks, the son of uneducated sharecropper parents who raised fourteen children and four grandchildren on $2.50 weekly income, caught his dream when his parents decided to migrate to Steubenville, Ohio. In Steubenville, Hicks cashed in on his football talent by attracting prominent suitors such as Notre Dame, Nebraska, Iowa, Iowa State, Syracuse, Minnesota, Maryland, among many others. He earned an associate of arts degree from Ellsworth Community College and a bachelor of arts and a master of science degree from Marshall University. He made the dean?s list several times and was listed in Who?s Who Among Students in American Junior Colleges. Hicks, a senior environmental safety engineer, has been with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company for twenty-eight years. His experience at Marshall cultivated life lessons that he brings to work each day, and in fact drove him to his career choice. He chose the safety profession because he said that there were no trade secrets in the profession. Hicks believes that the safety profession is a humanistic way of extending godly love to the workforce by helping them return home the same way they came to work. He earned twenty-one awards from the State of Georgia, including a first-place award for his anti-litter campaign and a third-place award for his pollution prevention efforts during an eight-year period. He has been on the front page of the Atlanta Business Chronicle and has been featured in national news and advertising publications. He has made presentations on safety, recycling, and energy conservation to audiences from all over the United States and abroad. Hicks is active in the community, pouring the benefit of his experiences into other lives on multiple fronts. He serves as a mentor to troubled youth, teaches Sunday school, serves on the Cobb County Literacy Council to decrease the dropout rate and improve literacy in his county. In his wallet, Hicks keeps a lifetime pass to all Marshall University athletic events, a reward he and his teammates received for their crucial role in reestablishing the football program. It?s a fitting visual reminder for Hicks, who maintains an emotional tie to Coach Lengyel, the program, and the university that did so much for his character and prepared him to touch the lives of others through service and mentoring. Hicks and his wife, Della, are the proud parents of four who have also earned multiple college degrees with honors.