Nick Hill on Building Championship Culture

Nick Hill is the Head Football Coach at Southern Illinois University, where he also played football earlier in his life. Nick also played professional football. The crux and meat of our conversation today is about what he’s building at Southern Illinois. He’s had 3 winning seasons after plenty of losing seasons at Southern Illinois, and he’s going to talk about the culture that he is embedding into the program and why he loves coaching football.   Nick had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include: “You can still be young and not entitled and work your way up” (10:45). “It’s a people business, and that’s [true] in any business” (15:00). “If you want to make your way up in this profession, you have to be able to communicate verbally” (16:50). “Number 1, what are your values and what do you want this thing to look like?” (19:45). “How you’re hiring your staff, the people you put in place, your player/personnel people, it’s really the difference I think between elite teams and good teams” (21:45). “We have to be invested deeply in relationships” (22:50). “When you build a true team, it’s about development, it’s about overcoming” (26:20). “Humility is such a huge thing, but we mistake humility a lot. It’s not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less” (25:50). “Even as a coach, you have to have a confidence, your team has to feel that as well” (30:40). “There’s nothing like walking into a winning locker room” (49:00). “There’s that pursuit of that feeling, knowing that that is out there if you put in the work and you become that” (49:30). “It’s not what we know, it’s what the players know out there, on the field” (56:30). “There’s a core belief system here about how we’re going to go about things” (1:03:15). “This is my dream job… I love being here” (1:07:30).   Additionally, make sure to follow Nick on Twitter @17NickHill and to follow the team @SIUFootball. Thank you so much to Nick for coming on the podcast! I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers. Thanks for listening. -Brian