Football: Hill Ready & Raring To Go At HPYSP
[Written by Patrick Bean]
Newly installed Technical Director of the Hamilton Parish Youth Soccer Programme [HPYSP], Corey Hill, is agog in his now official role of administration at the community based-institution that aided his own rise to sporting stardom – both local and overseas – and at the same time played a pivotal role in shaping his life and career path.
Able to further educate himself at Alabama A&M University on the basis of his soccer prowess combined with academic aptitude, Hill received a degree designation in Urban Planning which has led to a sustained professional career in the field of planning and design at Government’s Department of Planning. He also starred on the pitch for the Bulldogs as an attack-minded play-maker, a role he started at Hamilton Parish as a precocious youngster, and was at the time more known as the younger brother of established sporting icon of the modern era, Ricky Hill, with both occupying starring roles in soccer and the national past-time of cricket and Cup Match as well.
Thus his mission at HPYSP is to at once to develop the abounding talent in the youth attending HPYSP, as well as to equip, prepare and make attractive his charges to overseas institution of higher learning that they too have opportunity to enhance their lots in pursuing careers within and without sports and be long-term self-sustaining and positive contributors to the Hamilton Parish community and the social fabric that is Bermuda as a whole.
“We’re looking to create a brand and provide opportunities to those wanting to further themselves in and through football whether that be towards becoming professional, compete on the collegiate level and to also be able to better themselves career-wise and in their forward life endeavours,” said Hill, speaking to Bernews a day following the announcement by HPYSP of his being commissioned in the role. “We need to get the community more involved in the process because we all have roles to play in the development of our young people with sports and beyond even what we’re doing.
“My focus here the overall development of players whereby they are equipped in a manner that allows each individual to be adapt to any situation or system they my encounter beyond just playing for Hamilton Parish.
“As far as winning competitions is not the primary objective or priority for the future but to improve them as individuals. I feel that if a coach is not working toward improving the individual then what is it that they are accomplishing. Any good coach can create a good team when laden with talent, but if one is not working in an effort to gainfully equip and develop the individual then what are they really doing?
“If you give child food for day, he eats that day. If you give a child, he again eats but just for a day. But if you teach and equip that child to fish, then he can eat forever and that’s we want to see merge from our programme, individuals equipped, not just for what they may encounter here with us, but to tool them whereby they can adapt, adjust and thrive in any programme or system.”
Hill also pointed to this being able to be achieved under the team concept which also allows for relationship building and players being responsibly tasked in roles that highlight their positive attributes but also demonstrate areas of weakness which can be identified and focused upon for improvement.
“The team concept will always exist and remain as a part of the developmental process,” Hill added. “At the same time coaches must be able to identify weaknesses of the individual and work towards equipping them that they can play and operate beyond any particular team system or club and adapt.
”It’s not just about football but in everyday life we want to be able to offer them tools to adjust and compete in whatever they choose to do in life.”
One of the hurdles that plainly exist for many is financing, especially when scholarship opportunities fall flat for those not having familial backing to support furthering education overseas and this Hill said invites the collective Bermuda to invest their wealth in assisting those forsaken to yet maximize their talents that this wealth be sustained and grow further.
“A lot of kids now are just getting by on the efforts of their parents alone and their are many of equal or greater talent being left behind due to a lack of financing,” he said. “That kid needs support in the same way to sustain themselves in any sporting career and beyond.
“This is something we need to address as a country and for us if we can help one kid out of their circumstance then that is viewed as a success.”
The key to this forwarding of the island’s footballing youth is for those within the administration of the sport to have a likewise abounding passion for the game and development to sustain and encourage programmes in this duty of creating more well rounded and prepared men and women for life’s offerings.
He pointed out how too often he witnesses persons in positions of directorship and influence holding onto positions well after the desire has faded, after their own children have passed through the programme and their focus has changed from supportive parent with a child involved to one not so enthusiastic once their own’s involvement has ended.
He also vocalised his opinion that infighting such as that ongoing within the Bermuda Football Association [BFA] over matters pertaining the academy system and what it is requiring of coaches versus who they actually employ in instructional roles is not helpful to he overall scheme of development.
“The people on top are fussing and arguing amongst themselves and no one is listening to each other and the kids are suffering as a result and it’s not right,” said Hill, who has a UEFA ‘B’ licence coaching badge and has always been known for his passion toward the game. “No one want to at least listen and instead we shoot the messenger based on our personal opinion of the individual rather than the validity of what’s be presented and said.
“We’re operating at an amateur level, whereby you don’t have to take on everything someone says and implement it, but you must at least .I have a UEFA ‘B’ licence but I listen to everybody and don’t just say that, ‘I have a ‘B’ licence, so I’m not hearing what you have to say because you don’t have one’, or I view them as beneath me in terms of football knowledge and experience.
“We just don’t listen to each other and that’s partly the effect of living in such a close and small community which often time hosts a matching mentality that helps to keep us back.”
While the posting as Technical Director is new in the official sense the reality is that Hill has long acted in a similar role as an untitled leader at the home of the Hot Peppers, his legend as a player well evident and known and a useful reference in commanding the respect of players at all levels.
He is currently the coach of the senior team which is striving for promotion from the BFA First Divination to the upper Premier Division.
A 1995 graduate of Alabama A&M he, back in 2012, Hill used his academic training and then position as coach to at once request a more purposeful facility at Shelly Bay Field, which hosts HPYSP, and while an extensive initial plan proved beyond budgetary accommodation, a scaled down version was accepted and used in the renovation and extended construction of a small pre-existing building to provide adequate bathrooms and changing facilities for the various community programmes, groups and people utilising the area resource.
Highlighting the many struggles impacting many of the Island’ traditional workmen’s, sporting and community clubs – particularly ‘black’ clubs – Hill believed it vital that Parish remain firm in their position as a viable institution in the modern model and be able to stand as an inspiriting light among the dimmed persona of the grass-roots establishment.
“Community clubs are struggling and it’s dear to me that we here take it to another level,” he noted. “It’s there for the taking.
“A lot of our sister clubs are going in the opposite direction and we as a major, stalwart club, if we lose our way, how does that reflect on the others. It’s time to rise; it’s time.”
Hill has a one year contract with HPYSP with an option for renewal at contract’s end.
