It was 41 years ago in April of 1987 as a 28-year-old sportswriter that I was given one of my favorite assignments.
From LAX, I flew to Indianapolis, rented a car and drove one hour to Bloomington, Ind., home of the NCAA basketball champion Indiana Hoosiers. My most vivid memory was nervously driving on Route 37 with no GPS guiding me and seeing the many varieties of basketball hoops hanging on farm houses and family homes, providing powerful evidence that all the stereotypes about the state’s love for basketball were true.
This was months after the best selling book, “A Season on the Brink,” was published. And a month after coach Bob Knight and Indiana won their fifth NCAA basketball championship.
My assignment was to check in with Glendale native Joe Hillman, a 1984 Hoover High graduate who was Knight’s first recruit from west of the Mississippi River. Hillman averaged 41.3 points his senior year at Hoover He ended up being a reserve guard behind Steve Alford and Keith Smart on the 1987 NCAA championship team, so it was perfect timing.
He also continued to play baseball and was a 25th-round draft pick of the Oakland Athletics in 1986.
Fast forward to Tuesday at the YMCA in La Cañada Flintridge. The guest speaker for the Glendale Quarterback Club was Hillman. It was the first time seeing him since my trip to Indiana. Now 60 and living outside of Indianapolis, Hillman was asked tough questions.
1984 All-CIF basketball team.
(1984 Foundation)
Can you still hit?
“I can still do that.”
Can you still make free throws?
“I don’t know about that.”
How come you never went into coaching?
“I wouldn’t have been patient enough.”
How did Knight convince you to go to Indiana?
“We don’t have this in Indiana,” Knight told him during a visit to Santa Anita while looking out at the San Gabriel Mountains. “Why would a California kid come to Indiana?”
Hillman: “I want to play on a national championship team.”
Any Knight stories to tell?
“I don’t know if you can put them in a paper.”
Years later, when talking to other players, Hillman said, “There was a method to his madness. They all had the same stories with different names.”
(Manny Millan/Sports Illustrated via Getty Imaages)
Among the Knight truths: Players who practiced best always got to play. The best players always got the most heat from him. Anyone who graduated from Indiana received his total loyalty.
Hillman remembers calling Knight eight years after graduation seeking a phone number to reach a Reebok executive to inquire about a job. Knight ended up telling the executive he’d drop Adidas shoe contract for Reebok if Hillman were hired. Hillman didn’t get the job but learned what Knight would do for any player who got his degree.
“He was the most honest, most blunt coach,” Hillman said.
Asked why he chose to be subjected to such harsh criticism for four years, Hillman said, “My father was on me from the time of T-ball. He said constructive criticism was good.”
Comparing today’s college sports environment of NIL deals with the 1980s, Hillman said, “It would have been scary what kind of money we could have gotten.”
Hillman expressed disappointment at the lack of multiple-sport athletes today in high school sports. He said even Knight appreciated and supported his option to keep playing baseball.
Looking back on that trip from 1987, I re-read my observations: “The four-lane highway that stretches from Indianapolis to Bloomington is virtually deserted as darkness begins to descend over the lush, green countryside. The temperature is in the 50s, and the sky is overcast after three straight days of damp weather. The picturesque Midwestern landscape is immaculate, but equally alluring are the distinctive basketball hoops found among the farms and family homes along Route 37. Hoops are everywhere — on barns, rooftops, telephone poles, even next to power transformers.”
I remember getting lost in a forest trying to find where Hillman was living in a townhouse.
I wrote: “After finding the correct street, the quickest way to locate an Indiana basketball player’s residence is to ask a young fan. Shooting baskets by himself on a court not far away was a 12-year-old.
“Do you know where Joe Hillman lives?”
“Sure,” the youngster says.
Those were the days.