Nevada Griffons head coach John Hill visits with one of his players during a 2007 game. -- Herald-Tribune Photo [Click to enlarge]

Herald-Tribune

The tenure of Nevada Griffons head coach John Hill III is officially over.

Hill has been head coach of the Griffons for the past four years and holds an overall record of 115-95, but has recently accepted a position as head coach at Fort Scott Community College. This will be his first head coaching job at the college level, and he holds high hopes for his future and the future of the team.

"I'm excited about the opportunity, but it's made life more hectic than it already is," Hill said. Fort Scott Community College has now been without a head coach for the past six weeks and Hill has been forced to pick up the slack that resulted from that vacancy.

He had hoped to be able to stay for the remainder of this season as coach of the Griffons, but his responsibilities to the new job have proved too much to allow that to happen. The Griffons have granted a leave of absence, of sorts, for the remainder of the season to give Hill the opportunity to get his feet under him in Fort Scott and to get the program running.

As for the Griffons, assistant coaches Brendon Bump and Ryan Mansfield will continue working together to coach the team in Hill's absence. Bump will continue to work with the pitchers and Mansfield will coach hitting and act as third base coach for the remainder of the games this season.

Hill will return as a team manager for the NBC World Series, should the team finish high enough in the Jayhawk League standings to qualify. He hopes to be able to return for the last two home games of the season against the Joplin Slashers in an advisory capacity, but will leave the coaching up to Bump and Mansfield from now on.

Hill says he will always be around in some capacity to help the Griffons as a team, however. He acknowledges that the responsibilities that come with being head coach at a community college will not allow him to form the team as a whole, but he will always be around to help with player references and recommendations, as well as helping to find assistant coaches. "I'm just right down the road. I hope to always help the Griffons, regardless," Hill said.

A large part of why he was hired as head coach at Fort Scott, Hill claims, was his experience with the Griffons. The experience he gained and the opportunities that he was given by the team were pivotal to his selection to this new position.

Hill's career as a coach includes a fairly extensive list of projects. He started out his coaching career as a student assistant at Baker University from 2002-2003, and he has done some head coaching in summer leagues along with being an assistant coach at Pittsburgh State University for three years and Neosho County Community College for three years.

Hill began his coaching career with the Griffons in 2005, and has taken the team to the NBC World Series in each of the last three years, with two ninth place finishes and one eleventh place. The Griffons have also had 11 former players picked up in the Major League Baseball draft who played under Hill.

Hill does really want to do a lot of changing when it comes to the Fort Scott baseball program, but does admit that some things will be different. "My predecessor, coach Moddelmog, did a good job of recruiting good kids and good players," Hill said, "That's something that I'd like to continue. He had success in the classroom, he had success on the baseball field."

Despite his respect for former coach Moddelmog, Hill hopes to build up the team even more and not only continue, but exceed the momentum the team already has. "I don't want to stand still, I don't want to move backwards. I strongly believe in an attitude of excellence," Hill noted.

The biggest goal that he has set forth for the team is to simply continue to get better everyday. In his mind, anything short of a step forward is a step back.

The improvement Hill seeks is not just on the baseball field, however. His "attitude of excellence" applies to all aspects of life, thus adding the goal of improving his players as students and individuals.

"I don't set goals as far as winning games. I think that's the wrong focus," he commented. The most important thing for him is the way games are won, not just the winning. Hill strongly believes in a philosophy of process before product, teaching and helping a player improve rather than simply pushing a "win at all costs, no matter what" attitude.

His attitude remains the same as it has always been -- not just to win, but to win the right way.

Hill has been coaching for the past six years without a break, and is excited for the opportunity to take some time off next summer. He thoroughly enjoys the job, but has come to a point where he wants to have an opportunity to just take some time off to "recharge his batteries" and get better and believes that he will be able to take that opportunity after the school year is over.

Hill says that all the hard work he has put in over the past six years and all the sacrifices he has been forced to make, thought they have been difficult, were worth it in the end.

He admitted tremendous excitement over the prospect of this new job, but at the same time, has kept his focus on keeping his assistant coaches and making the program at Fort Scott the best it can be. Hill hopes to get the highest quality staff he can and create the best team possible, but will do his best to avoid, as he stated it, "reinventing the wheel."

Hill strongly believes that if he focuses on simply making his players better scholars, better students and better people, the team "will be just fine."