Frank Hill's Legacy Still Strong
Dec 05 | Men's Basketball
By Tom Luicci
ScarletKnights.com
PISCATAWAY, N.J. – It’s a scenario that’s inconceivable now. One head coach for two college basketball teams?
One head coach for two college basketball teams that also happen to play each other during the season?
As Rutgers and Seton Hall look to re-invigorate their nearly 100-year-old rivalry when they meet tomorrow at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., the schools can look back to one man for sowing the seeds of this basketball series.
Frank J. Hill’s name doesn’t resonate with the majority of fans from either school these days – a likely result of his final year as a head coach coming in the middle of World War 2.
But he’s No. 2 all-time in victories at Rutgers – and, at 28 years, the longest-tenured head coach in the program’s history – and he’s third on Seton Hall’s career win list.
From the 1915-16 season through the 1928-29 season he coached both schools.
And for four of those seasons – 1915-16, 1923-24, 1924-25 and 1928-29 – Rutgers and Seton Hall played while he was coaching both schools.
“The way the story goes is he would sit in the stands when the teams played each other when he was coaching both of them,” said Utah athletic director and three-year Rutgers basketball letterwinner Chris Hill, Frank Hill’s grandson. “They said he would always have something to yell about every play because even though there was something good happening there was also something bad happening.
“My grandfather was tough from what I understand. He treated both teams really tough during those games. But he did his coaching in those games from the stands. He didn’t huddle up with either team. That’s what my father tells me.”
Frank Hill passed away before Chris Hill was born, but the stories have been passed down through the generations. Chris Hill’s father, Maurice B. Hill, played on Frank Hill’s final Rutgers team during the 1942-43 season.
“I was always curious about how he got from one school to the other for practice – this was the 1920s, remember – and I was always told that he demanded his players be on time because he always was,” said Chris Hill, a co-captain on Rutgers’ 1971-72 team. “He’d drive from one school to the other, back and forth, for practice.”
Frank Hill coached the Pirates from 1911-12 until 1928-29, posting 178 wins during his 17 seasons (there was no team during the 1918-19 season). Only Honey Russell and P.J. Carlesimo have more victories in Seton Hall history.
At Rutgers, he was the coach from 1915-16 to 1942-43.
There’s no record of Frank Hill actually arranging the first meeting between the schools in 1915-16, but he was coaching both at the time.
“To have a guy coaching two teams, and then having them play each other, you can’t even imagine that being possible now,” said Chris Hill. “I can’t imagine how much energy it took.”
In Rutgers basketball annals, only Tom Young (239 career victories with the Scarlet Knights) has more wins than Frank Hill’s 223. who remains the only person to coach both programs.
“If you lined up the great people in the history of Rutgers basketball and the impact they had on it, I can’t imagine my grandfather not being at the top of that list,” Chris Hill said. “He was also very influential in the early stages of Seton Hall basketball.
“Unfortunately when it’s that long ago people tend to forget.”
