Chemistry, shared history help Edmond, Hill make unusual S&C program work
At the beginning of 2016, Kentucky announced that it had hired strength coach Mark Hill away from Indiana.
He joined Corey Edmond's strength and conditioning program in Lexington as part of a unique situation with two men heading the operation.
Hill had previously worked around Mark Stoops at the University of Arizona. But his connections to the current regime in Lexington run a little deeper than that.
"My history starts with Coach Edmond from when he coached me in college and helped me get into the profession," Hill told CatsIllustrated.com as part of an exclusive interview that included Edmond this week. "We both worked with Bob Stoops and when Mike Stoops got the head coaching job at Arizona, Coach Edmond went as his head strength coach and he hired me as his first assistant."
That's where Hill's professional relationship with Mark Stoops started.
Because of Hill's history coaching with Stoops and Edmond, he kept a close eye on what was happening in Lexington from 2012-2015, before he joined the staff himself last year.
It's not as though Hill was struggling professionally when he was hired by Stoops at Kentucky. The Hoosiers were moving in the right direction, fielding teams with prolific offenses that were increasingly competitive in the Big Ten conference.
"I was looking forward to building on my success and then I got a call from Coach Edmond," Hill explained. "People think I'm playing when I say this, but I really thought he was joking."
Why would he leave a rapidly improving situation at Indiana where he was head strength and conditioning coach to join Edmond in Lexington? Remember, at this point the Cats hadn't yet reached a bowl game under Stoops and going into last season there was more than a little pressure for the staff to succeed.
When Edmond first approached Hill about joining the strength staff at Kentucky he laughed it off, in part because he didn't know how things would work logistically.
But he knew the program was doing a lot of the things required to succeed, and that, over time, made the position and the opportunity more attractive to him.
"I had seen how they started off there," Hill said. "The guys they were recruiting. And it's in the SEC. (Edmond) put it in a way that that made sense for me. I know people will say, 'Who's in charge? Who runs this or that?' I knew with him, it would work."
One of the reasons the Hill-Edmond relationship works is, according to Edmond, there are no egos involved.
"We're not insecure of who we are or how to do things," Edmond said. "He tells me what to do. I make suggestions for what I want that day...If he sees something he tells me. If I see something I tell him. It's not about ego. We're about winning. Everywhere we've been the foundation has been winning."
At some other programs the leadership hierarchy or model might be more clear-cut or easily discernible, but according to Edmond that's not necessarily a good thing.
"If you have a great strength program you can walk on the floor and not know who the head guy is," Edmond said. "I don't have to tell (Hill) how to carry himself in the strength program."
Hill said there has always been a chemistry between he and Edmond when they have worked together. That goes back to when Edmond was the head strength coach at UT-Chattanooga, when Hill played for the Mocs.
"Getting young men to strive to be better men," Hill said, is a big part of their mission. That encompasses football but it goes beyond it.
The chance to reunite with Edmond and rekindle an old working relationship with a friend was another selling point for Hill. It was a chance to "put that magic back together," as Hill put it.
Hill also told CatsIllustrated.com that he knew that working for Stoops meant that quality of life would be good as a coach.
"My wife knows a lot of the coaches' wives. I knew I would be happy," Hill said.
More than one year into his stint in Lexington, and a very successful one at that, Hill doesn't seem to have any regrets.
