The notion that something might be seriously wrong with his coach first didn’t hit Texas-Rio Grande Valley guard Quinton Johnson until just before a game in Houston late last season, and even then he didn’t have reason to think much about it.
Vaqueros coach Lew Hill, 55, had been struggling with health issues but, Johnson said, always preached toughness and backed that up with his actions.
“We were about to play Texas Southern and he was just lying down before the game,” Johnson said. “They didn’t really have a coach’s office or a coach’s room for them to go in, so he was just sitting on the couch, lying down.
“But then he came out a minute before the game and looked normal. He was coaching. He even got a technical.”
After the game, Hill told his players after the game he would have to take some time off for health reasons. He then accompanied the Vaqueros on the late-night ride back to Edinburg, Texas, met his wife upon the bus’ arrival at about 3 a.m., headed head home, then went to sleep.
He never woke up.
“It’s something you would never expect,” Renee Hill told the Washington Post three days after her husband died, “when someone lays down to go to sleep and you go to wake him up the next morning and God has already whispered in his ear — and he couldn’t refuse. God needed him more than we did here on Earth.”
UTRGV did not announce a cause of death, but Hill told the Post she believed it was her husband’s battle with amyloidosis, a rare condition in which an abnormal protein interferes with organ functions. Hill had also tested positive for COVID-19 on Jan. 22.
Renee lost her husband. The Vaqueros, 8-3 entering their 77-75 loss at Texas Southern, lost their guiding force.
“When you don’t have your leader anymore, everything starts unfolding and things just aren’t happening,” Johnson said. “It’s kind of hard to move forward and really adjust, especially at that point in the season because at the time we needed our leader the most.”
It was Feb. 7, two-thirds the way into the COVID-19-shorted college basketball season, and the Vaqueros had been making some noise in the Western Athletic Conference.
They had earlier paused for 10 days after Hill’s positive test, but that sort of thing was hardly unusual in 2020-21. Pauses, positive tests and contact tracing were all part of the game last season.
But deaths might have seemed hard to imagine. Except for Johnson, they already were.
“It was a tough situation for me personally because my dad had just passed away literally a month before,” Johnson said. “Then Coach Hill got sick (with COVID) right when I got back so we were all in quarantine. Then we had Coach Hill for a couple of days, we played the game and he ended up passing away.
“I feel like it was not only tough for me but other guys, too. Guys didn’t know if they wanted to finish the season but we decided that even if we were gonna lose every game, or whatever the case might be, that we were gonna finish the season because we know that’s what he would want us to do. It was hard on the team but we just had to fight through it.”
After a two-week break, the Vaqueros clobbered tiny Dallas Christian 116-51. They then lost their final six games of the season against WAC opponents.
Despite picking up honorable mention all-WAC honors at the end of the season, Johnson slumped individually after Hill’s death, too. He had 15 points against Utah Valley on Feb. 26 but just 14 points over the Vaqueros’ last five games, playing with a hole in his heart.
“I was playing good at the start of the season, but it started going downhill at the end,” Johnson said. “I was just mentally not prepared. But I wanted to do something. I didn’t want to go back home or just sit here and not play games at all because there wasn’t anything else to do. I just needed to do something to keep me busy.”
After UTRGV’s season ended in a quarterfinal WAC Tournament loss to third-seeded New Mexico State, predictably, Johnson and many of his teammates entered the transfer portal.
Just over three weeks later, UTRGV hired away Austin Peay coach Matt Figger. The new coach went to work immediately — not so much on the floor as in his office.
“I guess I hold the honor of taking over a very unique situation,” Figger said. “The biggest thing was trying to get to know the kids that were here, build that bond and trust with them. To try to sell them on my belief system and how we want to go forward.
“That took a lot of energy to have a lot of one-on-one sessions with those kids because they were they were fragile. Physically, mentally, they were very fragile.”
Figger said he told the players they had a chance “to create a legacy” by playing and representing UTRGV the right way, doing things that Hill would want them to do.
He managed to pull many of the Vaqueros back out of the portal, including Johnson.
“I was kind of on the fence but when I spoke to him and got a feel for him, he made me feel at home,” Johnson said. “I got some offers (to transfer) but I was already established here.”
Figger also sprinkled in a handful of experienced transfers, and attracted players who had committed to him at Austin Peay. Then he told all of them to work hard in the weight room, and on the floor in the preseason.
Johnson was fine with that. He’s heard that message before, and it never left him.
Even if Lew Hill did.
“He was like a tough guy,” Johnson said of his departed coach. “That’s how he led us. He always told us to be tough.”
