Grant Hill’s story begins in a world most basketball players never see. His father, Calvin Hill, was a Yale graduate, an NFL Rookie of the Year, and a Dallas Cowboys running back who played in Super Bowl V. His mother, Janet, graduated from Wellesley College — where she was a classmate of Hillary Rodham — and went on to become a corporate board member and consultant who sat on the boards of The Carlyle Group, Dean Foods, and Sprint. Grant was their only child. He was born at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas on October 5, 1972. Calvin brought his Cowboys teammate Roger Staubach to the hospital. When Staubach asked what they were going to name the baby, Calvin and Janet said they hadn’t decided yet. ‘Why don’t you call him Grant?’ Staubach suggested. And so a Hall of Fame quarterback named a future Hall of Fame basketball player.
The Hills moved to Reston, Virginia — a planned community in Fairfax County — when Calvin joined the Washington Redskins. They chose Reston deliberately: a socioeconomic and ethnic Shangri-la, as Sports Illustrated described it, where the biggest mischief their son might get into was running the toll road to Dulles Airport. They filled the home with fine art. Gave him piano lessons. Took him to London at age six, where he did headstands in the office of the U.S. Ambassador to Britain. At twelve, he mistook Norman Mailer for the president of Harvard at a Yale brunch and had to be corrected by Yale president Bart Giamatti. The rules were strict: no phone calls until the weekend, one per day. All homework before sports. No parties until age sixteen. No football until ninth grade, lest some youth-league coach damage him.
Grant didn’t rebel. He internalized the discipline and developed an almost pathological humility. He seldom mentioned his father’s name and preferred to be picked up from school in the family’s third car, an old Volkswagen. When Calvin came to speak to his school, eighth-grader Grant feigned illness and hid in the nurse’s office rather than endure the attention.
Basketball chose him. He played youth soccer and basketball in Reston’s community leagues — later crediting suburban soccer with giving him his quick first step. By thirteen, his summer-league team upset a Detroit squad featuring future NBA players Chris Webber and Jalen Rose. At South Lakes High School, coach Wendell Byrd pulled the reluctant freshman straight to varsity. Grant didn’t want to skip ahead of his friends. Byrd insisted. By senior year, standing 6-foot-8 and running the point, he was Virginia’s Mr. Basketball, a McDonald’s All-American, a Parade All-American, and the most sought-after recruit in the nation.
His mother wanted Georgetown. His father preferred North Carolina. Grant chose Duke — recruited by Tommy Amaker, then an assistant under Krzyzewski. Janet later joked: ‘The kid was hamstrung by his mother. He was not allowed any independent thoughts or actions before he went to college. I was obsessive with discipline. Obviously he turned out okay.’