ROLLA, MO  --  Last week may have ended her career as a full-time employee with the Missouri S&T Athletic Department. But Debbie Hickey will always bleed Green & Gold. And she will always be a part of the Miner athletic "family."

Hickey's last day in the S&T Athletic Office was Friday, July 18, as she retired from the department. Despite that, however, she will continue to work at the school, in the University Division of Student Success, and will be operating out of Norwood Hall.

"I'm going to go help (that department) out where I can," Hickey said. "I'll be a floater over there, help out where they need me. And I will still come over here (to the athletic department) and help, too. I will probably work football games, among other things. I'm also a volleyball official and will still do that."

However, for more than 30 years the S&T Athletic Department was home away from home for Hickey, age 62. She began working at the university in November, 1986, serving in the accounting and fiscal services office. Then Hickey moved over to the athletic department during the 1993-94 school year as secretary.

While in the athletic department, she served in a variety of roles, including as secretary, senior secretary, budget compliance, NCAA compliance, budget facility operations; senior woman's administrator and assistant director of athletics. Hickey retired with the title of S&T Assistant Director of Athletics - Business and Senior Woman's Administrator. She has been in charge of handling all budget matters for the university's athletic department and also assisted in NCAA eligibility matters for the more than 400 student-athletes in the school's athletic department. She is also a certified high school volleyball official, and plans to continue to serve in that capacity. Hickey also graduated from S&T in 2003 with a bachelor's degree in psychology. So she's a Miner through and through!

During her time in athletics, Hickey has seen both the good times and bad times at the university. The overwhelming majority of them have been good, she says. "I've seen a lot of changes facility-wise, finance-wise, support-wise, fan engagement-wise and student involvement-wise," she said. "When I got here there was no tailgating going on. Now, we rent tailgate spots. We've deleted some sports; we've added some sports. As an example, men's volleyball has been a good addition. And this coming year will be the first year men's volleyball will be a conference sport (in the Great Lakes Valley Conference), and we're excited about that. We're pretty right on par as far as gender equality, matching men's and women's sports to student population. And I see things getting bigger and bigger."

Hickey, a native of Steelville, Mo., said the best part about her tenure in the Miner Athletic Department has been the family atmosphere that has existed from when she began on through to the current staff. "I'm going out on a high note," she said. "Even though it's in the administrative part of it, we're all such a team. All have the same goal - to get those athletes across the stage (graduating) and to be competitive on the playing field as well."

Hickey was part of the end of an era of the S&T Athletic Department which featured many long-tenured Miner coaches and athletic administrators. She rubbed elbows with some of the greatest names of Miner athletics past. "That was such a fun time!" she said. "I remember (former football head coach) Charlie Finley, (assistant football/wrestling head coach) Joe Keeton, (assistant football and golf coach) Bud Mercier, (assistant football/baseball head coach) Chuck Broyles, (Former Athletic Directors) Billy Key and Mark Mullin. (Former men's basketball head coach) Dale Martin, (multi-sport coach and administrator) Sarah Moore, (Former women's basketball head coaches) Linda Roberts and Alan Eads. (Former basketball assistant) Marcus Payne and (Former football, track and cross country head coach) Dewey Allgood. Athletic trainer John Belich. I got here right after Mark became AD. I knew Billy when I did tickets here. And I knew (Key's wife) Naomi, (Finley's wife) Dixie, She-Gale Bullman (the former S&T football head coach/AD and his wife were both named Gale Bullman) and Joy (former football assistant Burr Van Nostrand's wife). So many of them." And Hickey says the family atmosphere surrounding the department is the same today with the current athletic department staff. "It's definitely a whole family thing that has kind of trickled down," she said. "Mark and Melissa (current S&T Athletic Director Melissa Ringhausen) have always been concerned with (new hires), will they fit into the family?"

The past couple of school years have been two of the most successful for the athletic department, as far as a combination of student-athlete academic and playing success and accomplishments. During that time a slew of teams and hundreds of individual student-athletes have received national, regional and conference honors for their respective classroom work. And on the playing field/court the Miners have had a recent run of championships. "It was fun to see (head coach Todd DeGraffenreid) and baseball do what they did this year," Hickey said of the team's first GLVC Tournament championship and a national tournament berth. "Softball won the conference tournament and went to nationals two years ago. The success basketball has had lately; making it to the (men's) national tournament this year. The track conference championships and a track national champion (Owen Fraser in the men's discus this past spring). The golf team's success; (former head coach Anthony Monaco) hit the ground running when he got here taking over for Chad Green. And Chad really knew how to recruit; he brought in all of those kids (from the two national-tournament qualifying squads)."

And Hickey led the charge to bring recognition to a group of S&T (then University of Missouri-Rolla) female student-athletes from the 1970s."One of my proudest moments was when I got a call from a female athlete from the 1970s," Hickey said. "They did not receive letterjackets back then. For a four-year period female athletes got wind-breakers instead of letterjackets. I took it upon myself to do something about it. I went to (former S&T Athletic Director Mark Mullin) and we started the Pioneers of Women's Athletics, and we got those athletes letterjackets." The Pioneers of Women's Athletics were presented their letterjackets during a reunion in 2017, and were later inducted into the S&T Athletic Hall of Fame in 2024.

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