Swain High celebrates Hicks’ WCU signing

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  • Swain senior Amaya Hicks signs to run at WCU. She's surrounded by family at a ceremony held last week at Swain.
    Swain senior Amaya Hicks signs to run at WCU. She's surrounded by family at a ceremony held last week at Swain.
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Six-time NCHSAA state champion Amaya Hicks was surrounded by friends, family and teammates on Thursday afternoon, Jan. 19 to celebrate her signing to run track at Western Carolina University.

Hicks is the captain of the high school cross country and track team. She’s had an impressive run of successes, including five championship wins for the team since 2021 and one individual state runner-up for cross-country last year.

Hicks said she was “just feeling thankful” for the dozens of people who had come out to celebrate alongside her. The ceremony, held in the Swain County High School Gym, started with Hicks formally signing her intent to go to WCU as her parents sat beside her.

Michell Hicks, Amaya’s father and former chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, said Amaya as a kid had been “very determined” and “sometimes stubborn,” but that she was a “great leader” for the cross-country team and that she’d done well representing both her school and Cherokee.

He said Amaya had been considering seven schools before finally deciding on WCU, where Michell himself ran track in his college days. She’ll be focusing on track there.

“Her work ethic is tremendous,” he said. “I’m very proud of what she’s accomplished. She’ll do well in the future training for just one sport rather than doing multiple in high school.”

Coach Keith Payne remembered that Hicks hadn’t initially even planned to run track.

“She wanted to play basketball, not run,” he said. “But she recognized how good she was at running.”

Payne said Hicks wouldn’t be resting on her laurels— there was another big meet in Winston Salem that weekend where the biggest teams from North and South Carolina along with Virginia would be competing.

Michell also praised Amaya’s academic accomplishments, such as her 4.5 weighted GPA. The choice of college was also important because it’s located on land that ancestrally belonged to the Cherokees.

“The land is very important to our heritage,” he said.