Guy Wicks

Guy Plumb Wicks (June 8, 1902 – January 16, 1968) was a college basketball coach and university administrator, and also coached baseball and football.

Born in Eustis, Nebraska, Wicks moved with his family to the Palouse region of northern Idaho. He graduated from Moscow High School and the University of Idaho, also in Moscow, where he played baseball for the Vandals, and was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity.

After receiving his bachelor's degree in 1925, Wicks coached multiple sports at the high school level in nearby Genesee for two years, back at Moscow for three, and up at North Central in Spokane for one.

He moved to Pocatello in southeastern Idaho in 1931 to become assistant athletic director and head basketball coach at the University of Idaho's Southern Branch (today's Idaho State University), then a two-year school. With the departure of Felix Plastina, Wicks became its athletic director in 1935 and also head football coach, posting a 29–17–1 (.628) record in six seasons with the Bengals.

After a decade, Wicks returned to Moscow in 1941 to coach basketball and baseball for the Vandals. During World War II, he served as an officer in the U.S. Navy, then returned to coach at Idaho in 1946. Wicks later worked in the athletic department and then in university administration, as the associate dean of students.

Following his retirement from the university in 1966, Wicks worked for the Sigma Nu fraternity. While in Atlanta to visit the chapter at Emory University, he fell ill and died in early 1968 at the university hospital; he had battled chronic lymphatic leukemia since 1960.

Wicks married Lela Grace Jain (1906–1997) of Genesee in 1929. She outlived her husband by nearly three decades, and was a leading citizen in Moscow. Grace entered UI in 1925 and was a member of Pi Sigma Rho sorority, which became Alpha Phi in 1928. Illness from influenza delayed her graduation until 1933, majoring in English with a minor in music. With two older brothers having served in World War I, she assisted in the promotion of the Memorial Gymnasium, which opened in 1928.

Grace was a financial advisor in the 1950s, elected a county commissioner in the early 1960s (both very uncommon for a woman at the time), and later the local chair of the Republican Party. A major contributor to the county historical society, she had a long run as a newspaper columnist as a senior for the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, writing right up until her death, which came a day shy of age 91.

The couple is buried together at the city cemetery in Genesee; they had two children, Grace Jain and Donald, and eight grandchildren.

A year after his death, Idaho's recently relocated baseball field (46°43′54″N 117°01′10″W / 46.7316°N 117.0195°W / 46.7316; -117.0195) was named for Wicks during the 1969 postseason. In the vast open area at the northwest corner of the campus which includes multiple intramural fields, the name "Guy Wicks Field" is now primarily attached to the women's soccer field at the western edge. Baseball was dropped as a varsity sport after 1980, and women's soccer was added in the fall of 1998.

The university's "Guy and Grace Wicks Award" annually recognizes two outstanding seniors, based on academic success, campus activities, and service to the university and the community.

College football