Lavon Hicks knows success.
 
He got his athletic start in Marietta, Okla., where he helped pace that team to a 1967 state championship in football.
 
After spending his freshman season at Oklahoma State, Hicks would make the move back to Southern Oklahoma and settle in at Southeastern.
 
Hicks was a two-sport star, participating in football and track for the Savages from 1971 through 1973.
 
From 1971 through 1973 Hicks carried the ball up and down the field for the Savages more effectively than anyone before him and nearly everyone who has come after him.
 
His 1971 season he gained 1,002 yards on the ground and wrote his name in the record book as the first-ever 1,000-yard rusher at Southeastern. That season would remain the top rushing season in program history for 22 years before Earnest Hunter reached 1,008 in 1993.
 
He is a two-time All-Oklahoma Intercollegiate Conference selection at running back where he became the school’s first 1,000-yard rusher in 1971, a mark that still ranks as the 10th best single season rushing mark in Southeastern history.
 
Hicks would go on to coach at the high school level, eventually leading his hometown Marietta HS to a state championship.