RUSTON, La. – Following Sunday's rain-soaked win over Southern Miss, Louisiana Tech outfielder Zoe Hicks walked toward the bus with the rest of her teammates for the ride back to Ruston.
 
Zoe, who had scored the second run of the game on a head first slide into home plate on a passed ball in the first inning of the 6-1 win, was covered with sweat and dirt, her pregame eye black (glitter-version) smeared across both sides of her face. She reeked of that sweaty, ballpark aroma that all players exude following a game on a hot, muggy, rainy May morning/afternoon in Mississippi.
 
Zoe didn't care. She is one of those players who wears that smell like a badge of honor. After all, it is the product of years of hard work.
 
 
Dance, Hockey and Softball … Oh My
 
It's who she is now. And it's a long way from the four-year-old version of Zoe growing up in Manitoba, Canada. The Zoe who preferred ballerina slippers and tutus.
 
"Dance was my outlet," Zoe said. "I could dance and sing and be energetic and crazy. I had my dance time. I was a little princess girly girl. I loved to have my hair done. I loved to have my makeup done. I just loved it. It was kind of my thing."
 
"I thought I would be the dad going to all the dance recitals," said Al Hicks, Zoe's dad. "She loved her dance. She was in a dance troupe in Red Deer. They worked all year long on their little routines and then in the spring one of the theaters sold tickets to all the families and packed the place for a few nights of recitals. You would see Zoe on stage, and she soaked that up."
 
Zoe is the youngest of two children for Al and Jan Hicks. For older brother Zak, hockey was his thing. And why not.
 
Hockey is a traditional Canadian thing. It is the staple for sports above the United States border. Plus, Al was a hockey coach. Natural fit … for Zak.
 
But as Al and Jan would quickly find out, chasing a puck around an ice rink wasn't exactly young Zoe's cup of tea.
 
Al worked summer hockey camps in Okanagan, British Columbia, for a decade. One year he convinced Zoe to try out the hockey camp, something that turned out to be a short-lived experiment.
 
"About Wednesday of the first week – it was two-a-days for these little 8-year-olds – she is getting ready to go to her second ice time in the afternoon and she came up to me and said, 'Dad, can I just go to the beach?' I had a pretty strong indication at that moment that hockey wasn't going to be for her," said Al.
 
Her introduction to the sport she loves these days came around age 6.
 
"We put a ball in her hand and she played a little outfield and it was OK, but dance was still her passion," Al said. "But then we put her in the circle and she started pitching. Not to say it went very well for her early on, but she got a passion for ball."
 
The introduction to the sport wasn't necessarily a smooth one for young Zoe.
 
"Her first pitching experience, she walks the bases loaded," Al said. "She walks in one run. Two runs. Three runs. Four runs. And (coach) Clayton Cassidy says to me, 'We got to get her out of there.' I said, 'Yeah, but it can't be me.' So Clayton walks out to the circle and says to Zoe, 'How's it going, Zoe?' She said, 'Yeah, this isn't really how I had it planned.' Out she comes, but she was undaunted."
 
"For me moving from dance to softball, I liked being the center of attention," said Zoe. "I was that person. I was always outgoing. I was bubbly. I was energetic.  I played one game and I went home and said, 'Dad, I want to pitch. I want to touch the ball every single time. I want the ball to come back to me. Every single time. I want to be in the middle of the circle."
 
And a softball player was born.
 
"We broke a lot of boards in the back yard working on her pitching," said Al. "She got to a pretty good spot. I think if she had stayed in the outfield the whole time, she may not have developed the passion for it, but her being right in the middle of things helped that. She would play shortstop, and she would pitch. She got the bug for ball. She went from interested to committed to passionate, absolutely passionate about the sport once she got into that 12 or 13 age range."
 
 
European "Vacation"
 
Prior to Zoe's eighth-grade year, Al got a job in Europe coaching hockey at a sports academy in St. Polten, Austria, about a 45-minute drive from Vienna. It was a great opportunity for Al and a chance for Zak to continue his hockey training at the academy, which also offered numerous other athletic chances for youngsters. Zoe made the move overseas as well.
 
"It was crazy. It was a big adventure for me, my dad and my brother," said Zoe. "It was just something different. I was 12. I had this incredible opportunity in front of me to travel Europe."
 
But the incredible opportunity meant finding a sport to take at the academy, an academy that didn't offer softball. So Zoe turned back to her original love, dance. Only this time it was taught by a professional Russian ballet instructor.
 
"In order for her to be a part of that, we had to find a sport for her," said Al. "She probably could have gotten by on the basketball or volleyball. She was not a soccer player. But then the dance opportunity came. Even though she worked pretty hard, you could start to see her passion leave dance and become really, really part of what softball was. The discipline of the dance was really good for her. Just learning how to commit herself to a craft and try to get better."
 
Zoe agrees.
 
"The dance I had been doing was just for fun," said Zoe. "It was more social. No competition or anything. I think that's what I liked about ballet (in Austria). You were beating out people for a ballet position. The instructor (Frau Uszedmanoba) was always talking about that … being a professional ballerina. She would say, 'You have things to work on. Go fix it and I will see you next week.' It was more feedback for me, and it was like now go hone your craft. I really liked that about dance.
 
"I think that's why I put in so much time now to know my swing. To watch film and do slow motion video work. To do a bunch of analytics on my swing and on my average and on my statistics. I think that kinda started there. How could I be at my best and use the things that I have to my advantage?"
 
Although she enrolled in dance at the sports academy that year, Zoe never quit working on softball.
 
"After the guys would get off the ice, she would drag me over to the corner of the rink and would set up a pitching lane," laughed Al. "And then we would go to one of the tennis domes and set up a batting cage and she would put in the extra work. She never slowed down."
 
"I would take the bus to school," Zoe said. "I would take the bus to dance classes. It was just all a big adventure. My dad and I lived in the apartment and my brother lived on campus at the sports academy. It was basically my dad and I hanging out. When he had extra time, we would go hit or pitch at the hockey rink. We would step off 43 feet, and I would pitch. One day he pulled out the radar gun they used for slap shots for the hockey guys. We were working radar stuff with my pitching at the end of the hockey rink. Everyone looked at us like we were crazy."
 
 
College Bound
 
The hours of hard work paid off.
 
Zoe earned a softball scholarship to play at Iowa Western Community College where she enrolled in the fall of 2017.
 
"There were not DI people banging on our door or calling us," Al said. "Through a connection she visited Boston College. I knew they weren't going to sign her but it was a way to whet her appetite. (Iowa Western) Coach Ben Greer did a world of good for Zoe. Her first year she was pretty average. He spent a lot of extra time with her. He would pitch with her and hit with her. Her next year was an All-American year for her."
 
She was actually named to three different All-American teams following that sophomore season, including first team National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) as well as second team FastPitch News and third team National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA). She batted .488 with 24 doubles, 71 RBI and 66 runs scored. In the circle, Zoe was 16-5 with a 2.69 earned run average and 130 strikeouts.
 
It was enough to get her noticed by one Division I program.
 
"Coming out of junior college my options were still limited," said Zoe. "It was either a DII school in West Virginia or Buffalo. Mike Roberts (now an assistant coach at UL-Lafayette) was the head coach at Buffalo and told me he wanted me to be a part of turning that program around."
 
So prior to her sophomore season at Iowa Western, she signed the national letter of intent to play in New York. The summer following her All-American season, she received the news that Roberts was heading to UL-Lafayette and a new coach would be hired at Buffalo.
 
"At that point I had the decision to either decommit and find a new school or go to Buffalo," said Zoe. "I made the decision to go to Buffalo. I just didn't have that many options at that time. But when I got there, I realized it wasn't the program for me."
 
After entering the transfer portal, Zoe's former Iowa Western coach helped her make the connection to former LA Tech head coach Mark Montgomery in Ruston. The Lady Techsters had just lost a left-handed hitting first baseman and Montgomery needed to fill a position need quickly before the start of the spring 2019 season.
 
"(Coach Montgomery) was very honest from the beginning," Zoe said. "He wanted me to come make an impact on a program that had won the C-USA title in 2017. He sold me. I was on board with that."
 
"Zoe coming to such a strong DI program was really good for her," Al said.
 
The marriage worked instantly.
 
Zoe started 42 games for the Lady Techsters in 2019, batting .269 with 32 hits, 22 runs and 35 RBI. She was the perfect complement to an already loaded and talented lineup. She made a significant impact helping Tech in a heated race for the regular season title until she broke her ankle while sliding into third base in a game against UTEP late in the regular season.
 
Even with Zoe on the sideline for the last 19 games of the season, the Lady Techsters managed to capture the program's first regular season conference title and the C-USA Tournament title with a 3-1 win over Marshall at Mary Bowers Field in Birmingham. Zoe still played a role, using her enthusiasm and energy from the dugout to urge her teammates to a memorable late season run.
 
The 2020 season came and went … quickly. A new head coach in Maria Winn. A roster that had lost a highly-decorated senior class. Change. Adversity. And at times, plenty of struggles. Yet Zoe, who had recovered from her ankle injury, didn't miss a beat, batting a team-high .344 with six doubles and two home runs. Tech opened C-USA play winning two out of three at UTEP and appeared to be poised to turn the corner when the college softball season – along with the entire country – shut down due to COVID-19.
 
It was just one more disappointment to overcome.
 
"I asked her one day if she had any regrets about not signing with a smaller program where she could have been their All-American, their all-everything," Al said. "Zoe said, 'Well, it wouldn't have made me better. I needed to go somewhere that was ahead of me, to a DI program where I was surrounded by players that were going to make me better and by coaches that were going to ask me to do more.'
 
"That's the attitude I wanted her to have," Al said. "Ruston has been a good fit for her. There have been some heartbreaks along the way with her. But if you look at the big picture, life is going to throw you some nasty changeups and curveballs. I think her time there has given her a skillset to move with those changes and do well in life."
 
 
Tech Connection
 
This fall while the rest of her LA Tech teammates were in Ruston, trying to maneuver through the challenges of acclimating to a third coach in three years and of operating in a COVID-19 world, Zoe stayed in Canada.
 
"I remember she called me and said she just didn't feel good about crossing the border," Al said. "She was quite concerned about the pandemic. I told her to start making some phone calls and maybe she could do some workouts through her connections at Sport Manitoba."
 
That advice led her to a chance meeting with former Bulldog baseball player Amos Ramon in Winnipeg.
 
"I was hitting one day and (Amos) starts asking me questions about places in Ruston," said Zoe. "'Is Dawghouse still there? Do you go to this place or that place for postgame?' We started talking about how Ruston has changed so much. The new facilities … all that kind of stuff."
 
"She would be training and hitting by herself," said Ramon, who played for the Bulldogs in 2005 and 2006. "I knew the connection. So I went up and introduced myself. We talked about Ruston and Tech. I knew what kind of hard worker she was. It always intrigues me when I know a player is a hard worker. That's what I'm driven to as far as a trying to work with those types of players. Just watching Zoe come in every day and work out. She was there four to five hours a day, lifting and doing other things at the facility."
 
According to both of them, the relationship turned into one of pupil and student. Zoe's drive to get better and to hone her craft. Amos' drive to help people do exactly that.
 
But it wasn't just softball that Zoe wanted help with during the summer and fall working with Amos. Nope. Zoe has played and has a desire to continue playing baseball following her Tech softball career.
 
 
Expedition League
 
As the sun begins to set on Zoe's collegiate career – she took advantage of the NCAA's ruling that allowed 2020 seniors to play in 2021 – she does so knowing that her career on the diamond isn't over.
 
In January, Zoe made a little history by signing with the Wheat City Whisky Jacks of the Expedition League. She became the first female to sign with the 12-team collegiate summer league. Once the Tech spring quarter ends, she will head north to Grand Forks, North Dakota, for the opening of the summer season on May 25. Normally the Wheat City organization is based in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, but due to border issues pertaining to COVID19, it will call Grand Forks home for the 2021 season.
 
"College kids from all over come and stay with a host family and play for the summer," said Zoe. "It's an interesting opportunity to be the first female to play in the expedition league. I think we play 62 games in 70 nights. We have to have a bigger roster to deal with the amount of ball we'll be playing."
 
It won't be Zoe's first experience with baseball.
 
That came in the summer between her second year at Iowa Western and her first year at Buffalo/LA Tech.
 
"I went to a tournament with my dad's senior ball team because they needed more bodies; it was just kind of luck of the draw," Zoe said. "I played with them at a random tournament that they have gone to for years. There were a couple of weddings that weekend so they had less bodies than normal. The coach messaged my dad and asked if Zak and I wanted to play that weekend. My brother has played in the league before. My dad played in it years ago when he was like 16.
 
"I was like 'Ok'. I had never played baseball in my life. My first at bat I foul off a few pitches and get the count to 2-2 and then the guy hits me in the middle of my back. The provincial coach from Team Manitoba was there and came up to me after the game and was like, 'Hey, do you play baseball somewhere?' Anyway, I ended up going to play at the national tournament with them and we finished fourth. It was from there that I got involved with that program every summer after that."
 
So having been bitten now by the baseball bug as well, Zoe decided to pursue opportunities following her final season of softball in Ruston. She emailed Ray Walker, the general manager of the Whisky Jacks and expressed interest in playing. She followed up with phone calls to the team owner and ultimately spoke to the coach, Robby Laughlin.
 
"I knew that at the junior college level, Zoe was a pretty elite softball player, and she has been really good for (Tech)," Laughlin said. "I have done a lot of research on her. I talked to Amos Ramon, who said to me, 'She is a really good ball player. I am not going to call her a softball player. I am not going to call her a baseball player. She is just a ball player.'
 
"At the end of the day, my whole thing was I didn't want it to be a circus. I know this is something she has worked extremely hard for. Everything that Zoe is getting she deserves," Laughlin said. "The conversations between us have been that she wants to do this to prepare herself to be on Team Canada to compete in baseball at the World Cup for Women. I think this is an absolute great opportunity for her. The Expedition League is a pretty high-level collegiate summer league, and she is definitely going to get tested by it. That is for sure. I would like to think she probably won't ever see any competition in women's baseball like what she will see this summer. I am really excited for her to get this opportunity, and see how it goes for her. It's a unique situation for sure."
 
Unique and another opportunity for the ballerina turned ball player to get better.
 
"If you're sitting in your comfort zone, you aren't getting any better," Al said. "You probably aren't stretching and growing unless you are uncomfortable. This will make her uncomfortable, and she will have an idea where she stacks up. She has visions of playing for the Canadian National Women's Baseball Team if they get back to World Championships after COVID. She would love to put on the maple leaf jersey and compete for her country."
 
But for at least two more weeks, Zoe will put on the Tech uniform and compete for her University as part of one last dance with the Lady Techsters.