Couch: If you didn't know Mylan Hicks, you missed out

EAST LANSING – Most Michigan State football fans didn’t know Mylan Hicks.

Not like they thought they knew his classmate, Mike Sadler.

Hicks wasn’t the public showman. Or as visible.

He was a utility player — a cornerback, then a safety, then a linebacker, rarely a starter. He played mostly on special teams until his senior year.

But, like Sadler, Hicks left his mark on MSU’s football program and its people. And, like Sadler, his life is over way too soon.

Hicks, 23, was shot and killed early Sunday morning outside a night club in Calgary, where he played for the Stampeders in the Canadian Football League. He was trying to defuse the situation, Hicks’ mother told the Calgary Sun. He even bought the alleged shooter a drink and tried to calm him down, she said. It’s unclear if he was the target. It doesn’t sound like it. Doesn’t matter anymore.

Forty-one of the MSU players expected to travel for this weekend’s game at Indiana played with Hicks, coach Mark Dantonio said.

Guys like senior safety Demetrious Cox and junior defensive lineman Malik McDowell, both struggling with a jarring sense of loss.

“It’s tough. All yesterday and today I had trouble moving around and getting stuff done, because it just takes a toll on you,” Cox said Tuesday night.

“The last night we went out together, we had went out in the city (of Detroit) and had a good time. … It’s on my mind heavy,” McDowell said. The memory from this past summer is replaying over and over in his head.

Hicks was truly beloved by his teammates and coaches. His humor, his intensity, his perseverance, his loyalty, his authenticity.

“He was genuinely a good person to be around,” said former MSU teammate Chris Norman, who was a year ahead of Hicks at Detroit’s Renaissance High School. “I enjoyed his company. I enjoyed his jokes, laughter, energy. He was full of life. I’m really going to miss the kind of person he was.”

MSU will wear black socks and black shoes at Indiana, because Hicks liked the black Spartan gear, said Dantonio, who wore black Spartan gear to his Tuesday press conference. The Spartans will don a No. 6 on the back of their helmets, as well. At some point, they’ll attend his funeral, once he’s been brought back to Detroit.

“He was a great competitor and teammate, and our guys are missing him,” Dantonio said. “A lot of people are missing him. Guys from Renaissance that played with him, the Chris Normans, the Lawrence Thomases of the world. Those guys. Guys at (Public League schools), guys from Detroit. He was quite a person.”

Hicks’ impact on MSU’s football program can’t be measured in career tackles — he had 32 of them, 19 as a senior — interceptions or accolades. But he exemplified the winning culture we see from MSU these days. He helped foster it.

“He was intense on the football field. The kind of guy that you want,” MSU co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach Harlon Barnett said. “I always talk about that ‘other guy’ coming out (in you) on the field. His other guy came out on game day or whenever you practiced. He went a thousand miles per hour.”

Hicks battled injuries — including a broken arm which kept him out four games as a senior. He changed positions twice, arriving in 2010 as a heralded cornerback, before making the move to safety and later linebacker. He started the final game of his MSU career, the Cotton Bowl against Baylor, at the star linebacker position.

“He never complained,” Barnett said. “He just wanted to play and get out on the field and show what he could do.

“He was loyal to his coaches, to his teammates, to this university. Because that’s who he was and that’s how he believed. He was a Spartan through and through, a true example of a Spartan Dawg through and through.”

Hicks was also an important early commitment in a pivotal recruiting class in 2010. Others followed, especially from Detroit — Will Gholston shortly after, Lawrence Thomas, the following year.

“If you base it on what those guys did here and what they’re still currently doing, that was probably the best class we’ve brought in here so far,” Barnett said. “He was part of that class, he was one of the early ones in that class, and one of the ones still playing ball. He was still playing. That tells you what kind of person he was.”

Hicks got a decent look from the San Francisco 49ers as an undrafted rookie before being released at the end of training camp in 2015. He signed with Calgary in May but hadn’t played yet in the regular season. But, by all accounts, he was loved there, too.

That he had caught on somewhere professionally didn’t surprise Barnett.

“That’s his mindset. I’m sure some guys don’t practice like he practices,” Barnett said. “When you practice like you’re playing in a game, you’re running past people in practice, because everybody else is jogging around. He’s doing everything full speed. A coach is like, ‘Whoa!’ That catches a coach's eye. ‘How do we not keep a guy like that?’ He would have played a long time, too.”

Hicks was simply doing as he intended, dating back his days at Detroit Renaissance.

“He’s a very driven guy,” Norman said. “I remember when we were in high school, Mylan was a little bit undersized, but he made it clear that he was going to play professionally one day. And, in a sense, he was able to accomplish that goal.”

The sad irony of his shooting death is that Hicks escaped a city marred by gun violence and was living in a country where guns are nowhere near as prevalent. Mylan’s mother, Renee Hill, told the Calgary Sun that she was relieved to have him out of Detroit, that she worried about him less up there.

Mylan knew he had to get out of Detroit.

“There’s a big narrative in the city that you want to use whatever mechanism you can, whether it’s through sports, whether it’s through conventional means of education, no matter, you want to get to a place where you don’t have to stay there,” Norman said, “where you can get out, experience different people, experience different cultures. He talked about it, I talked about it, LT (Thomas) talked about it. Everybody talked about it.”

“You never really know when your time is going to be,” continued Norman, who’s close to graduating from Moody Theological Seminary. “Make the most of the time that you have. We should cherish the moments, we should cherish the people, and we should live lives that are exemplary that can impact others.”

Barnett kept grinning as he thought of Hicks Tuesday night, especially as he recalled one story from his final fall camp in the dorms.

“They were staying in Case Hall and I had dorm duty that particular night,” Barnett began. “ And I got off the elevator over in Case, and down the hallway the door was open to the rooms and he was at the front end of the hallway but his back was to do the door. And LT was down at the other end, and (Mylan) is talking all kind of noise to LT, but he doesn’t see me. LT sees me, he’s like ‘(Shh), don’t say anything.’ Mylan is yelling, ‘You’re this and you’re that.’ They’re having fun, they’re joking and I tapped him on the shoulder and everybody busted out laughing, man.”

“I feel for his family, in particularly his mom,” Barnett said. “Man, some people say, I couldn’t imagine. I can’t image how they’re feeling. It’s a loss. It’s a big loss.”

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.