With no games to analyze until football, its time to add a few new features to the blog. I present to you "Where are they now?", an idea blantantly ripped off from the SBN Chiefs site, Arrowhead Pride. Ever wonder what has happened to some of our favorite Ducks of old? Where are they now? will attempt to answer your questions.
Julius Hicks : Men's Basketball : 1999-2001 : Forward
You may remember Julius Hicks as a reserve forward on the 1999-2000 NCAA Tournament team, and a starter on the 2000-2001 team. He was a JUCO transfer from West Valley College in Saratoga, California. He was more of a defensive player than anything else, and his 32 blocks that season is seventh on the UO single season list. He had five blocks in a single game against WSU that year, which is the second highest single game total in UO history. He graduated from Oregon with a B.S. in Sociology in 2001.
According to his bio on the Stanford basketball site, he played two years professionally overseas in Switzerland, South Korea, and Austria from 2001-2003, before returning to the US to become an assistant coach for his JUCO team at West Valley College. In 2006, he was hired on as Director of Men's Basketball Operations at Stanford.
You may be wondering, what the hell is a director of basketball operations? I was wondering the same thing, and found this site. Basically they deal with scheduling and budget operations. This is everything from ensuring that there are not more road trips than the school can afford, to taking care of travel and hotel arrangements, getting out of town practice times and facilities, dealing with player ticket requests, film exchange, and, at some school, dealing with fundraisers and boosters. Its quite a thankless job.
We will be doing this feature intermittently throughout the summer. It will feature both more obscure players like Hicks, and more well known players. If there is a player whom you're wondering what became of, email us at addictedtoquack@gmail.com, and we may choose that player for a future post. Both basketball and football players will be included.
GO DUCKS!!!
--Dave