RICHMOND, Ky. – EKU Vice President and Director of Athletics, Kyle Moats has officially announced the hiring of Bryan Hicks as the Colonels’ new Deputy Director of Athletics, along with other organizational changes within senior athletic leadership.
“I’m excited about our team moving forward. In my evaluation of the staff, I wanted to bring some additional experience on board at the senior level. I believe we accomplished that.” said Moats. “In my meetings with staff, I listened to their goals and ambitions moving forward. We were able to reposition some areas to help them with their career aspirations. We have many talented people who want an opportunity to grow. It is important to put people in positions where they could excel and help us move forward as a department and university. Increasing revenues, community engagement, budget efficiencies, and the fan experience will continue to be paramount as we move forward.”
Hicks joins the Colonels after spending the past two years with the SWAC as the Senior Associate Commissioner for Promotions and Strategic Partnerships.
A native of Huntsville, Alabama, Hicks returned to his Alma Mater as Director of Athletics for Alabama A&M on June 4, 2012, ushering in a new era of success for the Bulldogs. He joined the institution following his time as Missouri State’s Associate Athletic Director for Student Development from 2009-12.
Prior to his arrival in Springfield, Hicks spent 13 years at the University of Louisville, serving as an academic advisor for athletics, compliance coordinator, Associate Director for Academic Services and Assistant Athletic Director for Academics.
He spent five years in the latter role, overseeing the academic responsibility for the university’s football program, the Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium computer lab as well as other team operations.
When Hicks returned to Alabama A&M in 2012 he set the tone early for excellence in all phases of the department’s operations.
In his first six months back on “The Hill,” he reshaped the Department’s facilities. In that time he coordinated renovations and upgrades of the football facilities at Louis Crews Stadium and Hobson Field House along with facility renovations and upgrades of the men’s and women’s basketball locker rooms and the men’s and women’s tennis courts.
Additionally, after returning to Alabama A&M, the university partnered with the City of Huntsville and the Huntsville City Schools Board of Education on the purchase of new artificial field turf for Louis Crews Stadium. That agreement included the usage of one of the premier Football Championship Subdivision (PCS) stadiums in the country for local high school and middle school football games.
Entering his ninth year at Alabama A&M, Hicks continued to succeed at bringing state-of-the-art facilities to the university’s campus.
In 2018 the institution completed a marketing, video, and display scoreboard project at Louis Crews Stadium, with the scoreboard project representing the culmination of a year-long fundraising drive. That effort included more than one million dollars raised to erect the structure along with a new digital marquee on Memorial Parkway that provides advertising opportunities to some 50,000 commuters on a daily basis.
Along with those efforts, November 2020 saw the breaking of ground for the institution’s brand-new Events Center. A 130,000-square-foot venue, it will seat 6,000 and serve as the home for men’s and women’s basketball and women’s volleyball while providing a top-flight facility for the campus to host a variety of events including concerts and commencement.
On top of those monumental facility upgrades, Hicks also has worked to enhance the A&M brand by scheduling Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) programs in football from the Group of 5 conferences. The Bulldogs played in-state power Auburn in 2012 and 2016 and also took on Georgia Tech (2013), Vanderbilt (2017) and Cincinnati (2018).
In addition to his role with Alabama A&M, Hicks is a member of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA), Black Coaches and Administrators (BCA), National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics (NAAAA), and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.
Over the course of his career in collegiate athletics, Hicks has completed executive-level career development with Collegiate Athletics Leadership Symposium (2011, 2012) and the NCAA Leadership Institute for Ethnic Minority Males (2002). He was also the Director for the 2012 Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Baseball Tournament and sat on the Board of Directors for the Urban League of Portland, Oregon.
No stranger to playing and coaching the game, Hicks served as an assistant coach for men’s basketball and was the multicultural admission coordinator at Warner Pacific College in Portland, Oregon. That followed his time as a college basketball and baseball student-athlete at Tuskegee University from 1986-87.
He would return to Huntsville and earn a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Alabama A&M in 1992 before finishing his Masters in Public Administration (MP A) from Portland State in 1996.
Other Department Changes
Director of Athletics Kyle Moats has implemented the following internal position changes within the athletic department in addition to the hiring of Hicks.
- Kirby Smith has been promoted to the role of Assistant AD for Compliance
- Steve Fohl has been promoted to Associate AD for Strategic Communications
- Corey Neal is now the Senior Associate AD for External
- Kirk Moats is now the Senior Associate AD for Administration
- Sean Hamilton is now the Director of Development for Athletics
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