Head Coach Jill Hicks enters her third season at the helm of the Cal State Fullerton women's gymnastics program charged with returning the Titans to the national spotlight.

She was hired to the post on June 21, 2006, as the fourth head coach in the storied history of the program and has already made an immediate impact in the gym and in the classroom.

Hicks, the 2007 Western Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, helped lead a young Titans squad to an 8-7 overall record and a 4-1 mark against conference members in her first year. Fullerton won three of its first four meets and even posted an upset of No. 21 Arizona State before finishing fifth at the WAC Championships in Boise, Idaho.

Last season, the Titans finished 6-14 overall and finished sixth at the WAC Championships, but she had three student-athletes (Alaina Baker in the all-around, Maddie Steinauer on vault, and Jessica Tait as an alternate on beam) selected to compete at NCAA Regionals - the first for Cal State Fullerton since 2005.

A former assistant coach for 14 years at her alma mater of Oregon State, Hicks returned to her native Southern California six years ago and was a coach and choreographer at the National Gymnastics Training Center in Aliso Viejo before joining the Fullerton staff on Aug. 3, 2005.

She served as an assistant to Head Coach Richard Gishi for the 2006 season, helping the Titans to a season-high score of 193.025 and a sixth-place finish at the conference championships.

In her two seasons with the program, her student-athletes have also excelled in the classroom as 17 gymnasts have been named to the Academic All-WAC teams 25 times and 15 student-athletes have been named to the National Association of Collegiate Gymnastics Coaches Academic All-America honor roll a total of 20 times.

Hicks, who is married to Titans' seventh-year wrestling coach Dan Hicks, was an elite gymnast with SCATS and a national team member, but a knee injury nipped her collegiate career in the bud.

She served as an undergraduate "coach" for the Beavers for four years until her graduation in 1982 and then returned for a full-fledged stint from 1987 through 1997. In that time period, the Beavers made nine consecutive NCAA appearances and produced 33 All-Americans and five national champions. Her primary areas of focus were balance beam and floor exercise.

The Hicks' have three children and live in Rancho Santa Margarita.