CITRUS COUNTY, Fla. — The Citrus High School football team is playing for a fallen teammate this season.
“Continue to bless Ms. Lakesha and her family as they grieve upon this yea of Antonio’s death,” Citrus head coach McKinley Franklin said in prayer to his team after practice.
You’ll find the number 56 painted on the Citrus football field this season.
“[The number is painted] right by the bench,” Franklin said. “He never saw the bench, though. He was a player. He was on the field all the time.”
Antonio Hicks was a standout defensive lineman for the Hurricanes.
“I think it’s great. Everyone still thinks about him,” kicker and friend Brayden Moller said. “Having his number out here really helps everyone cope with what happened.”
Hicks was just 16 years old when he collapsed on the team’s practice field last September. Franklin tried to revive him using CPR.
“Me and the other kids got the AED,” linebacker and friend Shaun Jonaitis said. “That was our job, coach TJ contacted the ambulance.”
He was rushed to the hospital, but doctors could not save him. An autopsy later revealed that he died of a heart condition.
“I’m going to be honest with you, I didn’t know what it was going to be like for me to come back and coach. I didn’t,” Franklin said. “But when you look at these young men and they say, ‘we want to play,' to me, it’s not an option.”
Antonio’s legacy lives on with the Hurricanes. A memorial bench was placed right beside the practice field in his parking spot where anyone can watch practice and remember big number 56.
“It means everything to us because he was our brother,” Jonaitis added. “A lot of us knew him way before football. We grew up together. It hit a lot of us extra hard. Having him on the sideline and on our jersey means everything to us.”
“Each one of these guys that step into this locker room, they’re going to play for Antonio,” Franklin said. “That’s just what we do. That was our brother, he was like a son to some of us.”
