Bob Hill

Career

Bob Hill played both basketball and baseball at Bowling Green State University, where he was also a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. Back then, college players couldn't join the varsity team until their sophomore year. Hill showed a lot of promise on the freshman squad, but that success didn't carry over when he moved up to varsity. After that, he turned his attention to coaching.

Early coaching career

Hill got his start as an assistant under Tim Grgurich at the University of Pittsburgh, working there from 1975 to 1978. In 1979, Ted Owens hired him for a similar role at the University of Kansas, where he stayed for six years, spending the last two alongside Larry Brown.

As NBA coach

He then joined Hubie Brown's staff with the New York Knicks for the 1985–86 season. The next year, Hubie Brown was let go after a 4–12 start, and Hill took over as head coach on December 1, 1986, finishing out that season. He later became an assistant for the Indiana Pacers under Dick Versace in 1989.

On December 20, 1990, after Versace was fired, Hill was promoted to head coach of the Pacers. He led Indiana for three seasons, from 1990 to 1993, and took the team to the playoffs each year. After being let go by the Pacers and spending a season as an assistant with the Orlando Magic, Hill took over the San Antonio Spurs and guided them to an NBA-best 62 wins in 1994–95, though they lost to the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference finals.

The next season started poorly at 3–15, and Hill was fired by one of his bosses, Gregg Popovich, who then replaced him. The firing puzzled many and angered Hill, given his past success and the fact that the slow start was largely due to injuries to stars David Robinson and Sean Elliott. Under Popovich, the Spurs went on to win five NBA championships over the next two decades.

At Fordham University

From 1999 to 2003, Hill served as head coach at Fordham University, where his teams went 36–78, a winning percentage of 31.6%. He was dismissed after the 2002–03 season, following just one win in Atlantic 10 play. That year, the Rams finished 2–26, the worst record in school history. Fordham paid Hill $650,000 in a buyout to leave, four years into his ten-year contract.

Did You Know?

• During the summer of 2011, Hill was invited by Nike to help the Taiwan men's basketball team as a consultant.
• He has coached the Tokyo Apache of the Japanese bj league.
• Hill was the assistant coach of the Ukrainian national team at the 2014 FIBA World Cup and the 2015 Euroleague.