EDINBURG — The college basketball world and UTRGV campus community continue to mourn the loss of Vaqueros men’s basketball head coach Lew Hill, who died unexpectedly at 55 in his sleep Sunday morning.
In the days since, Hill’s colleagues, coaching peers and former players from UTRGV and across the college basketball landscape have offered their condolences publicly to his family and team, reflecting upon the life and legacy of the late coach.
An on-campus memorial was created by a student group at UTRGV on Tuesday, while several of the Vaqueros teams wore black and orange ribbons that read “Peace and Love,” in remembrance of Hill on Monday and Tuesday.
UTRGV announced Wednesday that the men’s basketball team would forgo its scheduled Western Athletic Conference games at California Baptist this weekend as the team continues to mourn the passing of its beloved head coach.
Texas Tech Red Raiders head coach Chris Beard and Texas Longhorns head coach Shaka Smart — who went head-to-head against Hill’s UTRGV teams in December 2019 and November 2020, respectively — both discussed the impact Hill had on them and college basketball during their weekly news conferences.
“Lew and I grew up in the game together,” Beard said Monday. “Lew is a guy that always treated me the same no matter where I was coaching, no matter what the circumstance was. … I think what’s important are relationships and Lew was the best. He’s just one of those guys in our game that had no enemies, was always in a good mood and was always about his players.”
“It’s just heartbreaking,” Smart said Monday. “He just had an unbelievable charisma about him. I feel for that team. They’ve had a really good season to this point and Lew had done a phenomenal job.”
Current Oklahoma and former UTPA head coach Lon Kruger, who hired Hill as an assistant coach during stints with both UNLV and the Sooners, released a written statement Monday reflecting on the life of his friend and former colleague.
“Our world has lost a special person with the passing of Lew Hill,” Kruger said. “Lew represented the best of all we could want in our leaders and anyone working with young people in any walk.”
Today our team mourns the loss of our beloved coach and leader, Lew Hill.
In Loving Memory of Coach Lew Hill (1965-2021) https://t.co/mjS7NHqHXN
Peace & Love. #UTRGV #WAChoops pic.twitter.com/b6OkKn6Ht4
— UTRGV Men’s Basketball (@UTRGVmbb) February 8, 2021
Current UTRGV assistant coach Luke McKay served as an assistant with Hill on Kruger’s staff at Oklahoma, helping the Sooners reach the Final Four before following Hill to the Rio Grande Valley.
“I can still see the hotel in Houston we were sitting in (for the Final Four) when he called me down to the lobby. He sat us down and said, ‘We got it.’ From the get-go it wasn’t, ‘I got a head-coaching job,’ it was, ‘We got a head-coaching job,’” said McKay, who worked with Hill at Oklahoma and UTRGV since 2014.
“We had already kind of decided a long time ago that wherever he goes, I’m going to go. … I had never been down here, but I trusted in him and believed in his vision for what he wanted to build here, which has come true.”
Steadman has known Hill since 1999, when he was an assistant at San Jacinto Junior College and Hill, then at Texas A&M, was recruiting several of his top players. Steadman and Hill remained friends and frequently communicated before uniting at UTRGV once Hill received his first head-coaching opportunity.
“I was sick a few years back during his first year as a head coach,” Steadman said. “I wasn’t doing very well to the point that I was in a coma. My family came down from Nebraska and Colorado when I woke up and they were telling me stories about how Coach Hill would come every single day and hold my hand after practice. Every day he would come and say, ‘Come on Stead, I need you. Get healthy because we need you.’”
McKay and Steadman said they will both always remember Hill for his dedication to the game of basketball and the profound impact he had on those around him off the court.
“He would give many second opportunities, but he did his due diligence,” Steadman said. “He had a way of talking to (young men). … He won’t give them 10-12 chances, but he would give kids a chance. He always saw the great and good in everybody. He knew how to get that out of them.”
“I think what he did most of all is coach people and not players, and that’s a big distinction,” McKay said. “Sometimes we forget that there’s a person there in that jersey and a person behind those statistics. Coach (Hill) didn’t do that; he coached people. He didn’t coach a point guard or a big guy or a shooter; he coached young men and coached them all differently according to their needs.”
UTRGV’s coaches and players voted jointly to continue the season after this weekend with the goal of winning a WAC championship and punching the Vaqueros’ first-ever ticket to the NCAA DI Tournament to honor the memory of their head coach.
“We’re going to try to finish this off right for our friend,” Steadman said.
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Twitter: @ByAndyMcCulloch
