When I arrived at the WNBA or at Grambling State in 2015, I never crossed the heart of Shakyla Hill.
She had other desires. She wanted to be a lawyer.
Recording a 4x double in the game was not part of the plan. He didn't even think about getting two in his career.
But it happened for student-athletes who preferred the law over layups.
“I probably said 100 times in the first two years, I play basketball to pay for school. I'm not in school and playing basketball,” Hill said. Athletic. “But then (the first) quadruple bundle happened, which only changed the trajectory of what I had to do.
As multimadness continues, she pays attention to tournament brackets on both the female and male sides. Basketball has always been valuable to her life, but she is currently 28 years old and works in compliance. Hill is scheduled to start law school in August.
She happened to achieve incredible feats while playing in college. It's a feat that is not expected to be replicated anytime soon.
The 5-foot-7 guard ended his career with Grambling as the only Division I player with two quadruple layers. Division I NCAA players in male and female games have once achieved that statistic.
The first was enough to attract attention from a national audience, including the NBA All-Stars. It was during Hill's junior season when she scored 15 points, 10 assists, 10 rebounds and 10 steel in a 93-71 glambling victory over Alabama on January 3, 2018.
This effort attracted praise from LeBron James, Chris Paul and James Harden.
Crazy! ! ! You don't see a quadruple bundle every day! https://t.co/scvxd1xudd
– Chris Paul (@cp3) January 4th, 2018
“When they touched it, I think it was when I realized this was way bigger than I could have imagined,” Hill said. “Then it went out of control. The next day, that night, I think I had to turn off my phone because it was crazy.”
Isayra Diaz was Grambling's assistant coach at the time. She said that when James talked about it during a media session, it really made Hill excited.
“He commented on how cool it was and that alone, no matter what level you have, it's hard to do in general,” Diaz said. “It was pretty cool for her to do that. I think we were on the bus for a road trip and we showed her the (James) video.
“when he You can comment on that…it was cool. ”
After notching only the fourth quadruple bundle of women's college basketball history (15p, 10r, 10a, 10s), Grambling State's Shakyla Hill said he wanted to hear LeBron James' response to the feat. Well, here it is: pic.twitter.com/ifwjzrcbj8
– Dave McMenamine (@mcten) January 6, 2018
That game helped Hill change his life… and she did it again 13 months later.
On February 2, 2019, Hill recorded 21 points, 13 rebounds, 13 assists and 10 steel, a 77-57 defeat by Arkansas Pine Bluff. She is from Little Rock, Ark, so it was a special performance for her. The game was played in Louisiana, a senior at the time, and was excited to play against a team 45 miles from his hometown.
That second quadruple bundle was less surprising, though unexpected. After recording the first one, she was used to being careful.
“I adjusted a lot. I definitely feel like things like the last two years have shaped me into who I am now,” Hill said. “Everyone is looking. Everything you did at that point was under the microscope. I think you prepared me for the future and everything else.”
Hill praises the coach for not getting too big for the moment. She was revered for legendary football coach Eddie Robinson and as the alma mater of Super Bowl XXII MVP Doug Williams and Pro Football Hall of Fame defender Willie Brown, HBCU was revered for Grambling, the most famous athlete and most famous.
Since January 2018, media requests have looked non-stop to Hill. Fans and alumni wanted time and photos at home and on the road. Her social media has grown exponentially, and she has become a celebrity both inside and outside of Grangling, Louisiana, with photos appearing in local shops and school cafe areas.
Super 1 Foods supermarket in Ruston, Louisiana features Shakira Hill on the sign by the entrance and exit. (Photo courtesy of Shakyla Hill)
Hill joked that he needed to take photos all the time. Usually she was fine just wearing a headband that didn't match her shirt. But a 4x double is life-changing beyond the courts.
The 2017-18 season ended with the Tigers winning the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) tournament as the third seed, creating the first NCAA tournament in 19 years. Grambling lost to Baylor in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
However, the Tigers have created waves with security guards who once had basketball as a secondary option.
“It became natural for her,” said former Granbling coach Freddie Murray.
Hill was hired to play for Grambling at David Pierre Jr., currently an assistant coach at the University of Texas Arlington. Hill praises her first Grambling coach, Nadine Domond, for using a rigorous approach to push her into court when she arrives on campus. Domond is currently a Division II Virginia coach.
Pierre was recruiting another player when he saw Hill in the film. She wasn't that big of a player to play AAU basketball as much as other recruits during the offseason. Pierre said Hill is more interested in spending time with his family than competing on the summer circuit.
“Hill was someone who could play everywhere,” Pierre said.
The coaching staff at Grambling knew Hill had the talent to come out of high school. She was a sophomore when Hall won the Arkansas Class 6A state championship. The coach saw her as a high school game changer, but wanted to see her do more with that talent in college.
“We stayed with her about getting her in the gym and spending extra time,” Murray said. “She came, then she left, then she left, then she returned, and she left. At first, I think she was caught up in college and enjoyed college.
That's when the breakfast club became the norm. The breakfast club was a group of players who met Diaz for training at 4:30am, 90 minutes before practice. It was added to training later that day. The group helped Hill mature as a serious college athlete.
“It took a while, but when she started coming to the gym with me and Director Pierre, it showed improvements to her game,” Diaz said. “I think she's starting to realize, 'I'm in line with that, and now I'm reaping what I've sown.” It just continued from there. Then she got a bit obsessed with doing real training and things about its nature.
“She started falling in love with the whole breakfast club.”
Hill has become the team leader. She remained someone her teammates could rely on and off the court.
“I pushed her, challenged her, she was tough on her teammates, just like we were with her,” Pierre said. “It's hard to be liked at times, and being liked. She was our best player, but they liked her and they liked playing with her.”
Hill finished his college career as an all-swack performer for the first team of three seasons. She was the SWAC defensive player of the year as a senior. And, of course, there were two squares.
She was no longer playing just to pay for school.
Murray said Hill was projected as a three-round pick in the 2019 WNBA Draft after averaging 18.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 4.6 steel in his fourth year. However, Hill was not drafted. Murray said her WNBA bonded colleagues liked Hill's athleticism, but they wanted to see more from her, translated into a pro game. There was only one player on the 14 Grunbling roster during the 2018-19 season taller than 6-foot-1. That's why security guards like Hill were forced to play bigger than most games.
When Hill passed the draft process, HBCU players were not drafted when 2002 Andrea Gardner (Howard, Round 2), Amba Congoro (North Carolina Central, Round 4) and Jacklyn Winfield (South, Round 4) were selected. It wasn't until Ameshya Williams-Holliday (Jackson State, Round 3) in 2022 that HBCU players were drafted.
As Grambling did not have a player drafted by the WNBA, Pierre believes Hill is based on fighting enemies from the larger school. He also believes that Hill would have been an even greater sense if she had performed in today's age of name, image and portrait.
“She was in the wrong time,” Pierre said.
After the draft, Hill chose to play professionally abroad. She headed for Serbia and competed with ZKK Kraljevo, Serbia's first women's league (ZLS).
And who do you think recorded another quadruple bundle?
On January 26, 2020, a month after his 24th birthday, Hill won 15 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steel in ZKK Partizan 1953.
“They made that a big deal,” Hill said. “They threw a huge party at me. I was in the news. It was a big deal because (quadruple bundles and bundles) never happened in that league.”
When did you cover these two @shakylaa_ there was @gsu_tigers And now she's added to her impressive resume with a 4x double that is the pro #womensbasketball🏀 #goat pic.twitter.com/oqognufanv
– 𝘽𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙣 (@brianhoward33) January 25th, 2020
Her team won the Serbian Cup. The team also played in the WABA (Women's Adriatic Basketball Association) league, 17-1 when Serbia closed basketball due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hill averaged 13.3 points, 8.1 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 5.7 steel 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 wanted to send a bigger message that year than delivering high quality statistics.
“They're downplaying how people talk about SWAC and HBCU sports,” Hill said. “It's like a provenance for myself and 'Okay, I'm really hardworking.' Outside the skills needed to score, it takes a lot of grit and a lot of grind to get a four times the double, as well as energy consumption. ”
Hill wanted to try it out with the WNBA in 2020, but she said her training camp deal with Indiana Fever didn't pan out due to the pandemic. She then played for Bashikimi Prizren in the Kosovo Women's Basketball Super League and won the Kosovo Cup in 2022.
Murray and Diaz said they were not surprised by Hill's success in Europe. Diaz said he doesn't mind watching Hill give another shot to professional basketball. However, Hill is pleased with her current life. She said she was “completely finished” the performance and said she wasn't interested in coaching either.
When she graduated from Grambling, Hill was ranked third on the list of all-time best scores with 2,052 points. She was also ranked second in the rebound as a 925 security guard.
Diaz said it wasn't surprising that she was pursuing the law, in the way Hill spoke during the film session. Hill said she is considering Southern, Howard and Texas Southern for law school. She also doesn't mind returning to her Arkansas homeland for practice.
“She likes arguments and loves to talk, so she can be considered a lawyer,” Pierre said. “She's passionate. She lights up the room. She has a huge, infectious personality.”
Hill is ready to take that passion to law school. She said she is leaning towards law studies but keeping her options open. Being a district lawyer was one goal at one time.
Basketball was the only one that delayed that plan. And those quadruples.
(Photo: Ken Murray / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
