High School

Armwood defensive coordinator Fred Hicks named head coach at Pasco

Hicks guided a Armwood defense that yielded just 12.2 points per game in 2022

Andy Villamarzo

DADE CITY, FLORIDA- Pasco High School only had to look over in the next county over to the south to find its next head football coach. 

The Pirates have named Armwood defensive coordinator Fred Hicks as the school’s next head coach. Hicks succeeds Alphonso Freeney, who accepted a head football coaching job at Saks High School in Alabama. 

The former Hawks’ defensive coordinator led a defense that allowed just 12.2 points per game through 10 contests. Armwood went 6-4 this past season and just missed out on qualifying for the Class 3M state playoffs in 2022. 

Freeney was coming off a renaissance season with the Pirates in which he turned around a team that went 0-10 in 2021 and led Pasco to a 9-2 record and a berth in the Class 3S playoffs. Pasco is the lone school out of Pasco County to ever win a state championship, defeating Jesuit for the Class 3A title back in 1992. 

Pasco played Carrollwood Day in the spring, with the Pirates losing 42-7. 

Andy Villamarzo can be reached at andyvillamarzo@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @Andy_Villamarzo.

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Andy Villamarzo
ANDY VILLAMARZO

Andy Villamarzo has been a sports writer in the Tampa Bay (FL) Area since 2007, writing for publications such as Tampa Bay Times, The Tampa Tribune, The Suncoast News, Tampa Beacon, Hernando Sun to name a few. Andy resides out of the Tarpon Springs, FL area and started as a writer with SB Live Sports in the summer of 2022 covering the Tampa Bay Area. He has quickly become one of Florida's foremost authorities on high school sports, appearing frequently on podcasts, radio programs and digital broadcasts as an expert on team rankings, recruiting and much more.

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