Remembering coach Hill: the coaches perspective

In what has been a difficult week in and around the UTRGV Athletics department and community after the death of 55-year-old men’s basketball Head Coach Lew Hill on Feb. 7.

Vaquero Radio asked coaches from different sports at UTRGV on their favorite memories, moments or conversations they had with coach Hill in the past five years since he joined the department back in March 2016.

UTRGV Baseball Head Coach, Derek Matlock

“Well when I come down on the interview he’s the one that took me to lunch for an hour, spent a lot of time in that hour and of course…he was just such a great person and made you feel so welcomed and comfortable and as our years went on here,” Matlock said. “Even, the first year was a rough one and he was always, ’hey man this first one’s tough just keep fighting it,’ and he was always real supportive and of course when we won our championship that was the first phone call I got just congratulating me. He was a good person and he just cared for people and you don’t run into people like that every day that care for other people more than he cares about himself.”

UTRGV men’s and women’s XC and T&F Head Coach, Darren Flowers

“One of my fondest memories and it was under some unfortunate circumstances, but after the George Floyd murders, I reached out to him just to let him know that I was supporting him and that he had an ally cause it was just a really hard time,” Flowers said. “We had a good conversation and I learned a lot from him. We got to do an interview with the paper [The Monitor] together and just hearing him speak about his experience, some of the hard time that he went through, the perseverance that he had, the strength that he had, it’s just so evident of how strong coach Hill is as a personality and has overcome so much. I really saw him as a beacon on light and a beacon of hope for UTRGV and our community.” 

UTRGV Volleyball Head Coach, Todd Lowery

“I don’t know if there is any one moment that I really lean on,” Lowery said. “Coach Hill and I had a handful of really good conversations over the years, just his approach to everything. His ability to see big picture, I think if anything, and I think that’s what I’ve been trying to take away from this year. When he first came here and the team wasn’t quite where he wanted it to be and they took some lumps and they had some injuries and they gone through some injuries where they have a bunch of kids out and his ability to just come in and be steady every day and not ride those emotions and see big picture if there is something that I can take away from him that’s probably the biggest thing and like everyone says, his quote, ‘love and peace’, that’s probably something that always sticks with me. He just wanted to be happy, wanted to be doing what he was doing every day.” 

UTRGV Men’s Soccer Head Coach, Bryheem Hancock

“The first conversation I had with coach Hill; he was the first person that reached out to me once I got the job,” Hancock said. “First guy to get a phone call from, which is not normal for a men’s basketball coach to be calling a men’s soccer coach anywhere you go, so that just shows the type of person he is and you hear tons and tons of stories about how he was worried about everyone else, the well-being of everyone, how to make everyone feel like they were somebody he had known for years and I felt that connection. I’m from the northeast, he’s a Mount Vernon guy from New York so obviously with the accent I felt comfort there and there’s a few people that he knew that I know from my days being at UCONN, there’s a few guys at UCONN that he knew, so obviously we had some commonality there. But obviously the passing of coach Hill shocked all of us, we were all saddened by it, we are to this day and for us it’s what can we do to help, initially, his family, his staff and his student-athletes. And again, we are all trying to do all we can do to help in such a tough time.” 

UTRGV Women’s Soccer Head Coach, Glad Bugariu

“Coach Hill, I’ve known him a long time – I’m the longest-serving coach besides Todd [Lowery], we came from UT Brownsville so I was here from the moment he was hired – the thing I’ll remember most was a couple years ago we had a recruit to campus and he was just walking from somewhere and we just ran into each other with the recruit,” Bugariu said. “I just said, ‘hey, this is our head men’s basketball coach Lew,’ and he took his time and he spoke to the recruit for 10-15 minutes. It was brilliant, she’s playing for us now, and it was brilliant, and it was a moment where he didn’t have to say anything, he could have just said hello and kept walking. But to have the head men’s basketball coach take time and really help the recruiting process with someone he doesn’t know and it’s not in his sport it was real special and it’s a testament to his character for sure and we’ll all miss him in this department.”

UTRGV Women’s Golf Head Coach, Bryan Novoa

“We were at TopGolf doing a general outing for the student body and it was funny, the role of the coaches – Phillip Tate and myself – we were going down the line basically giving people tips and free lessons, advice on how to strike a ball better and lucky I was privileged with the opportunity to give our men’s head basketball coach kind of his first real golf lesson,” Novoa said. “Man, after about two-and-a-half minutes I was like, ‘hey, move like this, look at this part of the golf ball, hold it like this,’ and [he] started hitting the ball a lot better and got pretty decent, fairly quickly and he kind of looked at me with this look – it was very flattering – and he’s like, ‘you kind of know what you are doing,’ and I was like, ‘yes I do,’ and he looked at me with a lot of confidence and said, ‘I see why a lot of people like this sports, this is fun,’ and he looks right at me and he says, ‘I want you to give my daughter golf lessons.” Unfortunately I never got a chance to give his daughter golf lessons, and I would in a heartbeat, – I love teaching the game – but it was our first real bonding experience where I felt, ‘wow,’ I just got complimented by one of the – in my opinion the best coaches that I know – and it struck a chord with me. We kind of built our relationship off that golf experience and got to know each other based on that level and his door was always open.” 

UTRGV Men’s Golf Head Coach, Philip Tate

“I have one anecdote that I’ll share,” Tate said. “It was at his press conference when he was first hired and met with the media and he said, ‘the winning starts now,’ and I was a little skeptical. I didn’t know exactly what he mean or how quickly he meant, I didn’t know all the aspect that he meant, did he mean X’s and O’s, W’s and L’s but I think what he meant was the winning starts now as far as the mentality, as far as the culture, as far as the program goes. He really wanted to change things around here and he really did a lot to change the dynamic of that program and the face of the program, so I’ll always remember his confidence and his way of saying winning starts now.” 

UTRGV Women’s Basketball Head Coach, Lane Lord

“I don’t know if I have a favorite memory but last summer every day for about two months Coach Hill and I met and we just talked basketball every single day,” Lord said. “When you lose a friend and someone that was so important to you, not just me, it’s not about me, you lose a buddy but what he’s done for this community, for the diversity of this university, Vaqueros United, the great father he is, the great mentor he is to his players it’s really tough Luis, it’s a hard, hard day.” 

UTRGV Men’s Basketball Assistant Coach, Luke Mackay

“How willing and how much he enjoyed sitting down and having a chat, having a talk with you,” Mackay said. “He was always willing to talk to whoever and what might start as a quick hello often turned into an hour, two hours later of him just sitting and talking, not necessarily about basketball but the conversation or topic would just meander off into a lot of different things, basketball life, family, where ever it took us. Those are the things you take for granted. In the moment you don’t realize how much you’re really enjoying it while you are there, it’s just another conversation or chat whether it was in the hotel lobby, in the office, in the plane, in an airport, after practice, on the road recruiting riding somewhere to watch a game. Whatever it is those things…memories I’m going to have, really nothing specific just random times together we sat and talked about anything that came up and those are the things I’m going to certainly miss the most.” 

Twitter: @Radio_Rubio