Blytheville AD David Hixson to retire

Blytheville athletic director David Hixson is retiring after 35 years of service to the district.

As head boys basketball coach, Hixson guided the Chicks to the 2006 state championship and to several deep runs in the state tournament.

He was also an assistant coach when Blytheville won two state titles (1986, 1989) and an overall championship (1989) under Danny Ebbs in 1980’s.

In 2015, Hixson was named the 5A Athletic Director of the Year and earned the honor of 5A East Athletic Director of the Year in 2012. That same year he led the 2012 golf team to the state championship.

Hixson took over for Ebbs in the early 1990’s, keeping Blytheville as a basketball powerhouse.

During Monday night’s Blytheville School Board meeting, superintendent Bobby Ashley thanked Hixson for his service, adding that he could have coached anywhere in the state.

“You’re going to be missed,” Ashley said. “Not only am I going to miss you, but the kids are going to miss you. I’ll tell you how they are going to miss you. When things aren’t getting done, that’s how they know they miss you, Coach.”

“What you mean to Blytheville and what you mean to these kids, Blytheville was lucky you came through,” Ashley added.

A native of Paris, Ark., Hixson has made Blytheville his home for more than 30 years.

Ashley congratulated him on his retirement, saying, “The difference that you made in Blytheville, I can’t put into words, but anybody that has been around you or knows much about you knows that you are a Chickasaw through and through and will forever be.”

Hixson said he appreciates all the relationships he has enjoyed with the student-athletes over the years, adding he is still close to many of them.

“Coaching and teaching is a calling,” Hixson said. “What better place than this place.”

Hixson told the story of Dr. Frank Ladd, “who was so tight with money, he’s like getting blood from a turnip.”

During Hixson’s second year he wanted to start a baseball program even though there was no stipend offered and he had to raise the money for the program himself.

That first year the Chicks were second in the conference.

The second year they won the conference and the tournament and made it to the semifinals where they lost by one to future Minnesota Twins outfielder Torii Hunter and Pine Bluff .

“That next year, he brings me back in his office and says, ‘I didn’t think you could do it. I’m really proud of the fact that you did that. I think you deserve a stipend for what you’re doing,’” Hixson said. “I said, ‘I appreciate that,’ and he says ‘it’s going to be $200 a year.’”

Hixson continued by saying Ladd had a big back leather chair that he loved.

Two years later, when he became head basketball coach, he walked into his office and there the chair was that he still has today.

“I got $200 a year and a used chair,” Hixson quipped.

Hixson played at Arkansas Tech University from 1982-84 and became an assistant coach for Ebbs when Ebbs went to Blytheville for the ’84-85 season.

And he’s bled Chickasaw maroon and white ever since that time.