Each Friday during the 2017-18 academic year, the conference office will release a SCAC Spotlight feature story. For the first 13 weeks, the focus of these feature stories will be former student-athletes who played at an SCAC institution and went on to become head coaches in the conference.
In this, the eighth SCAC Spotlight feature, we sit down with Trinity University Women's Basketball Head Coach Cameron Hill who always has a special spot for TU.
Cameron Hill grew up with basketball in his blood. I mean, how many kids get to hang with NBA stars when they visit their dad at his work place?
Bob Hill, Cameron’s father, was the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs during the mid-1990’s, so trips to Dad’s office often meant interacting with the likes of David Robinson, Chuck Person, Avery Johnson and Sean Elliott.
Within this family environment, it makes sense that all the Hill brothers played hoops at one point in their life and Cameron’s path led to the local liberal arts college down the street from the Alamo Dome, Trinity University.
As a student-athlete, Hill led the Tigers to their first NCAA Division Playoff appearance following the team’s 1998 SCAC Championship title run. But he wasn’t ready to hang up his jersey just yet. The young TU graduate hopped across the pond to Europe to play professionally for two seasons. Hill then came back to the United States in 2000 and traded his jersey for a suit and tie and began a coaching career as an assistant at Division I Fordham (NY) University. After three years with the Rams, he accepted the position of Director of Player Development for the University of Kentucky’s men’s basketball team.
But Hill felt a connection with Trinity as a student that he just couldn’t shake, and when a position to coach at his alma mater opened, he took a leap of faith and applied. He wanted to come back to Trinity for a variety of reasons, but one really stood out to him.
“There’s no better place,” Hill said. “And the benefit for me is that there’s so much continuity here from when I was here as a player. The athletic director is the same, a handful of the coaches have been here since then, and the coaches who haven’t been there since then are by and large Trinity alumni who I have either played with or my brothers played with or were at school during the same time. It truly feels like home.”
Like many of the other head coaches at Trinity, family is very important. Cross country coach Emily Daum coaches with her husband and her sister-in-law, once her competition in college, and women’s soccer coach Dylan Harrison’s team shares the field with his former coach.
Being back “home” has allowed Hill to relate to his players on a different level, since he was once in their same shoes, and being back on the same court he played on, Hill hasn’t been happier.
“When you fall in love with the game, there’s just nothing in your life that can satisfy you like being a part of [a team],” Hill said. “I never really anticipated being on the women’s side and that, like other things in my life, has been the greatest decision I’ve ever made. I’m just tremendously happy with it and really, really happy being back at Trinity doing it.”
Catch Hill in the Bell Center in San Antonio this season!
Previous SCAC Spotlights:
12|01|2017 - Janson Hightower, Southwestern University
11|17|2017 - Sam Davidson, Schreiner University
11|10|2017 - Mark Hudson, Austin College
10|27|2017 - Matt Barber, University of Dallas
10|20|2017 - Jeherme Urban, Trinity University
10|13|2017 - David Foley, Centenary College
10|06|2017 - Emily Daum, Trinity University
09|29|2017 - Ryan Dodd, Austin College
