WINSTON-SALEM, NC — Whereas WSSU seems for its subsequent males’s basketball head coach, it stated farewell to Cleo Hill Jr.
Cleo Hill Jr. was shocked with a pair dozen well-wishers at C.E. Gaines Heart on Thursday afternoon. He was introduced with items and a particular video trying again at his six years at his guardian’s alma mater. Hill spoke briefly, thanking directors, coaches and supporters as he ready to move to the College of Maryland-Jap Shore.
“I feel it didn’t appear to be work as a result of as a household and Ramily — I felt all of us have been pulling collectively for a similar widespread trigger,” Hill mirrored. “Whether or not it’s successful in basketball, volleyball and softball, it simply felt like everyone, for probably the most half, was on the identical web page. And that’s one thing that, I’m really gonna miss.”
As Cleo Hill Jr. heads as much as Division I to tackle considered one of school basketball’s hardest jobs, his long-time good friend and assistant Eric Wilson is hoping he can land the gig.
“I wish to coach at Winston-Salem State,” stated Wilson, who was named interim head coach following Hill’s introduced departure. “We constructed one thing actually particular. And I wish to hold it going. I do know the convention. I do know the coaches. I just about know every thing concerning the CIAA that there’s to know from our time right here. Coach Hill afforded me and Coach Beck to do a variety of issues, inside the program. And from him doing that actually helped me a rather well helped me kind of for this place.”
WSSU AD Etienne Thomas says she plans on making a everlasting rent for the place. The job is posted on-line and is ready to shut on Friday. Former UNC star David Noel and former North Carolina A&T head coach Will Jones have reportedly each expressed curiosity within the job. WSSU alumni Paul Davis — presently the ladies’s head basketball coach at Bluefield State — and Shaw College assistant WyKevin Bazemore are anticipated to be within the combine as properly.
Hill informed the gang he thought it will be in the perfect curiosity of this system to rent Wilson as his successor.
“Issues that we constructed right here, the championships that you simply see on the display proper now — It’ll most likely be the perfect factor and really good — if we did proceed that with a coach like Ricky Wilson,” Hill stated. “I feel he has discovered the convention. He’s discovered Division II. He’s obsessed with HBCUs, obsessed with pupil athletes. I feel that may proceed what we constructed since 2018.
Wilson was part of the WSSU employees since Hill arrived at 601 S. MLK Dr. in 2018. He helped carry this system to 90 wins and two CIAA championships over that span.
“I like to inform people who we constructed the home. I’m not going to tear the home down. I’m going so as to add some additions to the home. I would put some new paint on the home, however the constructions is there. We constructed an important construction, an important basis. And I’m simply going to enhance on that.”
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