When it arrived at Grambling State in 2015, it entered the WNBA or created the idea that the incredible NCAA record never crossed Shakyla Hill.
She has other wishes. She wants to become a lawyer.
Recording four times the doubles in the game is never part of the plan. Gaining two people in a career isn’t even the same idea.
However, this happens to student-athletes who prefer the law rather than layups.
“I probably said that I was playing basketball for a hundred times in my first two years, and I was playing basketball for school. I didn’t play basketball at school,” Hill told Hill. sports. “But then there was a (first) quadruple doubles, which just changed the trajectory of what I was supposed to do because it gave me other opportunities to continue playing.”
As March Madness continues, she is focusing on the match brackets for women and men. Basketball is always valuable to her life, but she is now 28 years old and compliant. Hill plans to start law school in August.
She happened to achieve an amazing feat in college – a feat that is not expected to be replicated anytime soon.
The 5-foot-7 defender completed her career at Grambling, becoming the only I-division player to quadruple twice. In men’s and women’s games, only five NCAA players have reached that statistic.
The first one is enough to attract the attention of national audiences, including the NBA All-Stars. During Hill’s junior season, she scored 15 points, 10 assists, 10 rebounds and 10 steals in a 93-71 victory over Alabama on January 3, 2018.
The effort was praised by LeBron James, Chris Paul and James Harden.
Crazy! ! ! Not every day I see quadruple doubles! 👌🏰https://t.co/scvxd1xudd
— Chris Paul (@cp3) January 4, 2018
“When they talked about it, I thought that was I realized it was bigger than I thought,” Hill said. “And then it became out of control. I thought the next day, that night, I had to turn off my phone because it went crazy.”
Isayra Diaz was Grambling’s assistant coach at the time. She said that when James talked about this in a media conference, it really made Hill excited.
“He commented, how cool it is, and it’s all, no matter your level, generally hard to do,” Diaz said. “It’s cool to have her do it. I think we’re on the road trip on the bus and we showed her the (James) video. She started crying because he was one of her favorite players of all time.
“when he Being able to comment on this…it’s cool. ”
After earning her fourth quadruple doubles in the history of girls’ college basketball (15p, 10r, 10a, 10s), Shakyla Hill of Grambling State said she wanted to hear LeBron James’ reaction to her feat. OK, here is: pic.twitter.com/ifwjzrcbj8
– Dave McMenamin (@mcten) January 6, 2018
That game helped change Hill’s life…and she did it again 13 months later.
On February 2, 2019, Hill scored 21 points, 13 rebounds, 13 assists and 10 steals in a 77-57 win over Arkansas Pine Bluff. It was a special show for her, as she was from Little Rock in the Ark. Although the game was in Louisiana, Hill, who was a senior at the time, was delighted to play against a team 45 miles from his hometown.
Although the second quadruple doubles were unexpected, there were few surprises. After recording the first one, she got used to following.
“My adjustments are good. I feel like the last two years have shaped me into the people I am now,” Hill said. “Everyone is looking at it, and everything you do is under a microscope. I think it’s ready for me and everything else.”
Hill thinks her coach won’t let the moments be too big. She was in awe of Grambling, HBCU’s most famous football coach Eddie Robinson and alma mater to Super Bowl XXII MVP Doug Williams and Pro Football Hall of Fame guard Willie Brown.
After January 2018, Hill’s media demands did not seem to be stagnant. Fans and alumni want time and pictures – at home and on the road. Her social media grew exponentially, and she became a celebrity inside and outside of Grambling, Louisiana, and appeared in local shops and school café areas.
A Super 1 food supermarket in Ruston, Louisiana has Shakyla Hill on billboards at entrances and exits. (Photo courtesy of Shakyla Hill)
Hill jokes that photos must always be prepared. Usually, it’s nice to wear a headband that never matches her shirt. But four times the doubles changed life outside the court.
At the end of the 2017-18 season, the Tigers won the Southwest Games (SWAC) Championship with a No. 3 seed and played the NCAA Championship for the first time in 19 years. Grambling lost to Baylor in the first round of the NCAA Championship.
But the Tigers used a defender battle that once used basketball as a secondary choice.
“It just was natural for her,” said Freddie Murray, a former innovation coach.
Hill was credited by David Pierre Jr. Hill for her first judicial coach, Nadine Domond, to push her into the court with a harsh method when she arrived on campus. Domond is now the coach of the Virginia Division II.
Pierre is recruiting another player when she sees Hill in the movie. During the offseason, she wasn’t as big as other recruits in playing AAU basketball. Pierre said Hill was competing for more time than on the Summer Tour, which could lead to larger schools missing out on the signing.
“Hill is a person who can play anywhere,” Pierre said.
The stereotypical coaching staff knew Hill was very talented and graduated from high school. Hall High School was a sophomore when she won the Arkansas Class 6A state championship. The coach thought she was a game-changer in high school, but they wanted to see her talent in college do more.
“We stayed with her and were going to join the gym, join the time,” Murray said. “She would come and she left and then come back. Then she left. Initially, I thought she was just getting stuck in college life and enjoying college. I think it wasn’t until her junior year that she really started to really get into the time.”
That was when breakfast clubs became the norm. The breakfast club is a group of players who meet with Diaz for exercise 90 minutes before practice. This is a supplement to exercise later in the day. The group helped Hill become a serious college athlete.
“It took a while, but when she started going to the gym with me and coach Pierre, her game improved,” Diaz said. “I think once she started to realize, ‘I was in line with that, now I harvest what I sow,’ it just started from there. Then, she was just addicted to doing actual exercises and things of this nature.
“She started to fall in love with the entire breakfast club.”
Hill became the team leader. She is still someone that teammates can rely on on both the court and on the court.
“It’s like we’re with her, pushing her, challenging her, she’s harsh on her teammates,” Pierre said. “Sometimes it’s hard to be the best player and be liked. She’s the best player we have, but they love her, they like playing with her.”
Hill has been a college career as a team of global performers for the past three seasons. She is a senior SWAC Defensive Player of the Year. Of course, there are two quadruple doubles.
She is no longer just trying to pay for school.
Murray said Hill is expected to be a third-round pick in the 2019 WNBA Draft after averaging 18.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 4.6 steals during her high school period. But Hill did not draft it. Murray said colleagues with the WNBA tie love Hill’s athleticism, but they want to see from more of her roles that these sports can translate into professional games, like playing with postal players. The 14-player roster had only one player higher than 6-foot-1 in the 2018-1 season, so a defender like Hill was forced to be bigger than most games.
When Hill went through the draft process, there was no HBCU player selection since 2002, when Andrea Gardner (Howard, second round), Amba Kongolo (Central North Carolina, fourth round) and Jacklyn Winfield (South, fourth round). It wasn’t until 2022 Jackson State (3rd round) Ameshya Williams-Holliday did not draft until a player from HBCU.
Grambling has never selected a WNBA player, and Pierre believes Hill could have based on her performance with her rivals from big schools. He also believes that Hill would be a bigger sensation if she played in today’s name, image and similar era.
“She was just in the wrong times,” Pierre said.
After the draft, Hill chose to compete professionally overseas. She heads to Serbia to compete with Zkk Kraljevo of Serbia’s No. 1 Women’s League (ZLS).
Guess who recorded another quadruple doubles?
On January 26, 2020, a month after her 24th birthday, Hill scored 15 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals in an 86-62 victory against ZKK Partizan 1953.
“They did a lot,” Hill said. “They gave me a huge party. I was on the news. That was a big deal because (quadruple doubles) never happened that league.”
Covered two of them @shookyda_ exist @gsu_tigers Now, she adds an impressive resume with professional four-person doubles #womensbasketball🏀 #goat pic.twitter.com/oqognufanv
– 𝘽𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙣𝘽𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙣 (@brianhoward33) January 25, 2020
Her team went on to win the Serbian Cup. The team also competed in the WABA (Women’s Adria Basketball Association) League, when Serbia closed its basketball due to the pandemic of 19, with a 17-1 record.
Hill averaged 13.3 points, 8.1 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 5.7 steals in the ZLS. She averaged 14.3 points, 6.4 rebounds, 6.1 assists and 4.2 steals in the Waba League and was the defensive player of the year. She said she hoped the competition that year would convey a bigger message than providing high-quality statistics.
“How people talk about SWAC and HBCU sports, they kind of downplayed it,” Hill said. “It’s kind of like my own defense, and it’s like, ‘Well, I’m really a hardworking person.’ You definitely have to have a lot of courage and a lot of grinding to get four times the doubles because it’s not only time consuming, but it’s exciting.”
Hill wants to try out the WNBA in 2020, but she said the training camp contract with Indiana Fever was not eliminated due to the pandemic. She then played for Bashkimi Prizren of the Kosovo Women’s Basketball Super League and won the Kosovo Cup in 2022.
Murray and Diaz said they were not surprised that Hill had succeeded in Europe. Diaz said she didn’t mind watching Hill shoot another shot for professional basketball. But Hill is happy with her current life. She said she was “completely done” in the game and had no interest in coaching.
When she graduated from Grambling, Hill ranked third with a score of 2,052. She also ranked second in rebounds with a 925 guard.
Diaz said it was no surprise that Hill was pursuing the law in the way she spoke at a film conference. Hill said she is considering law schools in the South, Howard and Southern Texas. She didn’t mind going back to her Arkansas practice either.
“I can think of her as a lawyer because she likes to debate and she likes to talk,” Pierre said. “She is passionate. She illuminates a room. She has a big personality and is contagious.”
Hill is ready to bring this passion to law school. She said she is leaning towards researching corporate laws, but she is keeping her own choices. Becoming a district attorney is a goal.
The only thing that delays the program is basketball. And those four times doubles.
(Photo: Ken Murray / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
