Chris Hill first came to Utah in 1973 to take, essentially, a temp job. The 23-year-old liberal, Irish Catholic from New Jersey certainly didn't intend to make this slightly-populated, conservative western state his permanent home.
Yet here he is — 31 years later — a full-blown Utahn. Oh, he's still a New Jersey-bred, liberal Catholic. It's just that after arriving in Utah by serendipity or fate or whatever you want to call it, he never left.
And he's a big reason the intercollegiate athletic department at the state's flagship institution of higher learning is better and stronger, overall, than it's ever been.
For nearly 17 of those 31 years in Utah, Hill has been the athletic director at the University of Utah.
"Not in my wildest dreams did I think I would be here this long," said Hill.
Not that he's complaining, mind you.
"This is an awfully good job — and it just keeps getting better."
It is, however, a job that requires Hill to be more of a public figure than he's comfortable with. Truth be told, he'd rather keep his name out of the newspapers and off the airwaves as much as possible.
But he is a realist. He knows the public eye will shine upon him like it has only a handful of other times in the past 17 years during the upcoming weeks. He's well aware that he will be praised by some and ridiculed by others as he leads the search for a men's basketball coach to replace Rick Majerus, who resigned citing health reasons three weeks ago.
Finding successful coaches, however, has been a Hill strength. He's the guy responsible for bringing in both Ron McBride and Urban Meyer, each of whom advanced the Ute football program to new heights. He also hired Majerus, who brought Ute basketball into national prominence and within a few minutes of a national title in 1998.
The U. has dramatically increased funding and improved athletic facilities under Hill's watch as well. Rice-Eccles Stadium is one of 10 major improvements made in athletic facilities in recent years. More improvements are on the way, too.
Not only have the two revenue sports — football and men's basketball — been successful. The so-called minor sports, for the most part, have been flourishing as well. During the past year the women's volleyball, women's soccer, women's basketball and gymnastics teams have all been nationally ranked. The skiing team won the national championship last season.
"Utah has a lot of respect on a national level in a large part because of Chris," Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson said.
GO WEST, YOUNG MAN: Hill has been in Utah a long time now, but his early years shaped what he has become. You can take the kid out of New Jersey, but you can't take the New Jersey out of the kid, it seems.
Hill is a well educated man. He earned his bachelor's degree from Rutgers in math education. He added a master's in education and a Ph.D. in educational administration from the U.
But he knows classrooms aren't the only places of learning.
"I've always told everybody that my best education came from growing up in New Jersey," Hill said with a laugh. "I met so many interesting people. The diversity in that state is wonderful. I'm very proud to be from there. Everybody makes fun of it, but it was great . . . I have a whole other part of my life that is a tremendous influence on who I am. And nobody knows anything about it. They don't know the people I've met or where I've lived or what it's like to be born and raised in New Jersey."
The fact that education is such a priority to Hill should come as no surprise. Both of his parents were educators. He went to college on a basketball scholarship to Rutgers, where his grandfather, Frank J. Hill, had been a longtime coach.
Hill looked to be following in his grandfather's and parents' footsteps after graduation, taking a job as a math teacher and basketball coach at a high school just outside of New York City. After one year at that school, however, he was offered a job as a graduate assistant at the U. under Bill Foster. It was 1973. Hill accepted and headed west.
"My family thought I was crazy," Hill admits. "I'd never even been to the mountains or experienced anything out here."
Foster left Utah to take a job at Duke the next year — and Hill went to North Carolina with him — but only for a matter of weeks. Hill soon decided to return to Utah and to his girlfriend (and future wife), Utah native Cathy Cronin.
Hill took a job at Granger High teaching math and coaching basketball from 1975 to 1979. He then had another stint as an assistant Ute basketball coach, this time for Jerry Pimm from 1979 to 1981. He then abruptly left coaching for good.
"I really enjoyed coaching, but I saw what it did to people in terms of how hard it is and the amount of time it takes away from your family," said Hill.
Instead, he took a job during the next four years as the executive director of United Cerebral Palsy of Utah while finishing work on his Ph.D. During this time he proved he could be a fund-raiser, as he helped raise $750,000 in federal, state and private funding for a housing project for people with severe handicaps.
That fund-raising experience helped Hill get a job at the U. in 1985 as the director of development for the Crimson Club, where he was commissioned to raise money for Utah athletics. It put him in place to be considered for the athletic director job when it came open in 1987. Even though he was just 37 at the time — and looked even younger with a full head of black hair — he got the job.
"I always tell (former U. president) Chase Peterson and vice president Ted Capener, who hired me, that I probably couldn't get the job now if it opened up — giving what my resume was at 37."
TAKING CHARGE: It didn't take too long for Hill to find out that being an athletic director at a major university can be rough.
"1989 was a bad year," Hill says.
Actually, 1989 was the beginning of good things for University of Utah athletics. It was just a bad year for Chris Hill's psyche. Firing a pair of high-profile coaches took a toll on him emotionally. He wasn't ready for the flood of criticism and second-guessing he would get.
"Maybe I was just fat, dumb, happy and young at the time," he says now.
Hill sacked both of Utah athletics' most visible employees within months of each other — men's basketball coach Lynn Archibald and football coach Jim Fassel. While there were valid reasons for both changes, neither firing was universally popular with Ute fans.
"I've since learned that in any of these situations, you're lucky if two-thirds of the people agree with you (firing a coach). Then, you are lucky if half of the people agree with who you hire as the new coach. You end up with a lot of people upset at you no matter what."
But there is no denying that the two coaches who replaced Archibald and Fassel — Majerus and McBride — improved the respective programs, both in terms of athletics and adherence to academic pursuits.
Making tough personnel decisions, Hill says, is the toughest part of his job.
"It's a painful thing. Some people think you make frivolous changes," he said. "Nobody likes to have to fire someone. Those are the times when I lose sleep, have heartache and worry —but it's part of being in charge. There are headaches associated with being in charge."
He certainly got on the bad list of many Ute fans when he fired McBride. In retrospect, it's looked like a brilliant move since McBride's replacement, Meyer, led the team to the rare undisputed conference title. Still, letting McBride go was difficult.
"I hired Ron and I like Ron . . . but you've got to do what's right for the program and for the best interest of the student athletes, and that's what I hold on to in the dark times," Hill said. "Even if the fans don't know it or the students don't know it, I need to do what is in the best interest of the student athletes."
The good parts of his job far outweigh the bad, Hill says. Watching young people succeed on the playing field and in the classroom gives him great satisfaction, as does seeing new facilities get funded and built. The never-ending battles to keep the athletic department's finances in order also makes his job interesting and stressful at the same time.
"It's been fun because we've been moving in the right direction."
STAYING PUT: Hill never expected to be the University of Utah's athletic director in the first place and then didn't think he'd still be here after all these years.
Being an athletic director isn't a very stable job, after all. In the five year history of the MWC, Thompson points out, all eight schools have had more than one A.D. except Utah and New Mexico.
It's not like Hill hasn't had plenty of other job offers, either. He received calls and had interviews about athletic director job openings at Arizona State, Miami, Virginia and others.
Duke wanted him in 1998. "That was the closest I've come to leaving," he said.
Sure, he could have made more money at several other schools that had offered him jobs. But it was never quite enticing enough. He liked his job and his family liked where it lived.
"Nothing that I looked into was better for me at that time in my career," Hill said. "It just wasn't right for me and my family at that time."
Kathy Hill, Chris' wife, is a clinical instructor in the U.'s department of special education. They have two grown children. Their daughter, Aly, a former University of Oregon soccer player, earned her master's degree in social work from the U. in 2002 and is married to a former Ute skier, Ryan Forsyth. The Hills' son, Christopher, is a student at the U. finishing up his degree in organizational communication.
Hill is happy with his job with no intentions of leaving anytime soon, at least for the time being.
"I've never really thought about this being where I'm going to be forever, but who knows."
During his stay at Utah, he's had more and more responsibilities added to his plate. He's served on several national committees — the most recently announced being on the 10-member men's NCAA Tournament Selection Committee. It will be for five years beginning in September.
"It's good news and bad news," Hill said. "I've been wondering after I got the assignment if it's going to give me more headaches than I want, but I think it's good for the league."
He won't be able to be in the room when they talk about Utah in the tournament, but he will be able to be there when other MWC teams are discussed.
Since 1998, Hill has been a special assistant to the president of the U. and a member of the university's senior administrative cabinet. He's the MWC's representative on the NCAA Management Council's administrative committee and was elected to the executive committee of the National Association of Collegiate Athletics Directors in 2002-03.
HITS & MISSES: A 2002 issue of U.S. News and World Report ranked Utah among the Top 20 athletics programs in the nation based on winning percentage, graduation rate, number of sports and gender equity.
It hasn't all been good news of late, however. The school was recently hit with some negative publicity when it was placed on three year's probation for NCAA violations primarily dealing with the men's basketball program.
The NCAA sanctions stemmed from an investigation following the acrimonious termination of longtime ski coach Pat Miller. The findings seemed to indicate that Majerus — while not breaking major NCAA rules — often dismissed smaller ones and the U. was slow to put a end to the problems until Miller voiced his concerns.
Hill was criticized in some parts for letting Majerus run wild. Perhaps it stems from his desire not to be a backseat coach despite his own coaching experiences.
"I let the coaches worry about what happens between the lines," Hill said. "I don't want a coach to have to let me know what offense or defense he or she is running. That's their job. My job is to support them."
Hill learned from NCAA investigation and is taking steps to ensure it won't happen again.
"It was a strain for me personally because I'm so conscious that we do things right," Hill said. "The scrutiny was intense. We did some things we shouldn't have done, but, by and large, we run a really good, clean program."
Overall, Hill looks back at his time at the U. with some well-deserved pride over what's happened the past 16-plus years.
"We are accomplishing some things at Utah that some people didn't think we could," he said. "I don't think anybody ever thought we'd be in the (men's basketball) championship game in 1998. I don't think anyone thought we'd be sitting in a new stadium that I think is the prettiest in the country. We now expect to win some championships and that mind set is something I've had a part in and something I'm proud of."
Hill then catches himself.
"But we've got a lot of work left."
Hill looks youthful for his age and has a full-head of dark hair — only now there is just a touch of gray. Being an athletic director will do that to you. While he has no plans to leave, he feels the U. athletic program will be better when he does than when he started the job. He doesn't have a big head about it, though.
"I know the day I walk out of here and they hire a replacement, he'll be called 'a new, exciting, young, visionary leader.' And that's the way it has to be because the university is bigger than all of us in the department. That's just how it is."
Still, it's doubtful the next, young, visionary leader will stay 17 — or more — years.
E-mail: lojo@desnews.com