Plant City High School announced this week that former defensive coordinator Terrence Hicks will be the newest head coach for the Raiders’ football program.
“We knew that when Coach Clayton left that we would have big shoes to fill, but Terrence had been his right hand man,” Plant City principal Susan Sullivan said. “He’s been the one on campus all season, working with our boys and making sure that they’re doing what they need to do at school academically, that they’re in class, they’re on time, they’re working hard, he’s been the one that’s handled a lot of the communication. He’s just done a really good job and the kids really respect him so we felt like it was a natural next step to move ahead with him at the head coach position.”
A former defensive back at Wharton High School in Tampa, Hicks played football at Southeastern University and joined the Raiders’ coaching staff in 2022 following stops as defensive coordinator at Alonso High School and Wharton. Following last month’s announcement that Michael Clayton would be stepping away after one season at Plant City, Hicks was named interim head coach the following day.
For the Raiders, Hicks will be the program’s third head coach over the last three season. Head coach James Booth led the Raiders for six seasons, amassing an overall record of 29-23 after taking over ahead of the 2017-2018 season. In that time, Plant City won a district championship over Tampa Bay Tech on the heels of a 9-2 season in 2018. The Raiders finished the 2021 season under Booth with a 6-4 record in the regular season and earned a spot in the regional quarterfinals. In Plant City’s lone season under Clayton — a year in which the Raiders saw a massive student turnout yet fielded an extremely young roster that featured just a handful of seniors — they finished with a 3-7 record, with wins coming over 4-6 Hillsborough, 7-3 Alonso and 2-8 Jefferson.
In addition to Hicks being named head coach, Will Blankenbaker will rejoin the Raiders’ staff as offensive coordinator as it appears that Kenny Kelly — Plant City’s offensive coordinator for the 2022 season — will not be a part of the staff moving forward.
“We’re bringing back Will Blankenbaker who had stepped away from the program for a while, but he’s coming back and he’s worked really hard for our kids with recruiting and he’ll be the offensive coordinator,” Sullivan said. “We think that this will all be a really good fit and a continued way to build our program as Coach Hicks already has those connections with the kids. I think that this is the right thing for our program and the right thing for our kids.”