Indians name Hillhouse head boys basketball coach

Now, the big chair is his.

“I’m real excited,” Hillhouse said. “I grew up playing at Pacific. My dad worked at the district for so long. It was pretty cool to get to step into a leadership role. I feel like I learned a lot of leadership from my parents, how to do things the right way.”

Meramec Valley R-III school district closed applications for the position Monday, choosing to promote Hillhouse from among the field of applicants.

“PHS is excited to have Coach Hillhouse step into the role of head boys’ basketball coach at Pacific High School,” Pacific Activities Director Blair Thompson said. “Coach (Hillhouse) cares deeply about our student-athletes, the program and the Pacific community. He will do a good job on and off the floor helping develop young basketball players into not only better players, but better people.” 

In Hillhouse’s 14 seasons as an assistant, he has coached under John VanLeer and Cody Bradfisch.

VanLeer retired in 2020 and Bradfisch has been the head coach for the past three seasons. Bradfisch chose to step down after an 11-16 season this past winter.

“I accepted a new teaching position in the Northwest school district and will be stepping away from coaching,” Bradfisch said. “My wife and I had our son, Calvin, in January and I am going to enjoy more time at home being a dad. I will miss working with all of our players and will cherish all the memories we made together over the past couple of years.”

The Indians went 37-44 during Bradfisch’s three-year run and won a Four Rivers Conference championship in 2020-21.

As a player under VanLeer, Hillhouse appeared in 51 varsity games over his junior and senior seasons and scored 252 points (4.9 per game) with 131 rebounds, 80 assists, 49 steals and 29 blocks. The Indians won the Four Rivers Conference during Hillhouse’s senior season.

As an assistant coach, Hillhouse has been a part of six conference championship teams and Pacific’s Class 4 District 6 championship during the 2017-18 season.

“Over the years at Pacific, I’ve gotten to work with a lot of coaches that I really respect, most recently Coach Bradfisch,” Hillhouse said. “I got to work with Coach VanLeer for a long time, Scott Brown, Greg Hrdlicka, who’s over at Lafayette girls right now, John Barnes, and there’s more that goes on. I got to play for Coach VanLeer and Coach Brown when I played for Pacific High School and in the past 14-15 years of coaching, I’ve got to know a lot of other coaches in the area that I really respect and I feel like I’ve got to learn a lot of stuff from all those guys.”

Hillhouse and the Indians will look to lay the groundwork for the upcoming season this summer.

“Right now I’m getting a lot of summer information together with dates to get those out to those guys,” Hillhouse said. “We’re gearing up to start that right now. I really want to develop a culture of guys believing that working hard is fun, so that as we go down the road and we do work hard, successes can come from that. I hope that we can help make these kids good young adults. Some of my favorite stuff to do the last 5-10 years is to meet up with some of the guys that have graduated, having open gyms and play some to just catch up with what’s going on with Pacific alums.”