Indian Hill hires Ricardo Hill away from Walnut Hills as head basketball coach
INDIAN HILL – Indian Hill High School has made another splash of a coaching hire as athletic director Brian Phelps announced Monday that Ricardo Hill, formerly of Walnut Hills, will take over the Braves boys varsity basketball program.
The move comes a little more than three months after Indian Hill hired former Moeller coach John Rodenberg as head football coach.
The hiring of Hill comes just over a month after the departure of long-time Indian Hill basketball coach Tim Burch.
"It's going to be good for our community," Phelps said. "He's going to be teaching in the building also. He teaches computer science. It'll be nice to have another program director/head coach in the building full-time. I think that's important."
The community aspect was attractive to Hill.
"You can have kids from kindergarten on up stay in the same community and you can build a program from the ground up," Hill said. "The academic portion is very similar to Walnut Hills. I thought the job was enticing and gave me a new challenge."
At Walnut Hills, Hill led the Eagles to six Eastern Cincinnati Conference championships, with four of those won outright. In 2013, he took the Eagles to the Ohio Division I state semifinals. He was named ECC Coach of the Year three times including this past season when the Eagles were 23-3 overall (15-1 ECC).
The proverbial cupboard was not left bare with Hill's departure from the Victory Parkway institution.
"The team we have coming back should be incredible and our entire program is solid," Hill said. "I'm leaving Walnut Hills in an absolute great position where every team from seventh grade up is really, really good. The program is definitely in better condition than it was when I first came."
The 2021-22 Walnut Hills team featured Tyler McKinley, the top sophomore recruit in Ohio according to 247Sports.com who has been offered by the University of Cincinnati, Xavier University, Ohio State University and West Virginia's Bob Huggins.
Hill has coached several players who went on to college careers. From the 2013 state semifinal team, 6-foot-10-inch center Isaiah Johnson went on to play for Akron. More recently, 2015 ECC Player of the Year MaCio Teague was part of Baylor's 2021 NCAA national championship.
Currently, Indian Hill does not have open enrollment, so any player coming to play for the Braves would have to live in one of the eight area zip codes. Under Burch, Indian Hill was 11-11 this past season. Their last two Cincinnati Hills League titles came in 2021 and 2016.
Hill has some familiarity with the CHL having been player of the year in the league at the old Cincinnati Academy of Physical Education.
"Wyoming's always been a powerhouse," Hill said. "We're going to make Indian Hill a powerhouse. (AD) Brian Phelps is awesome. You can tell they're ready to advance the athletic program. With (John) Rodenberg coming over I can't wait to sit down with him and come up with a plan of having multi-sport athletes and building a winner."
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Indian Hill names Ricardo Hill from Walnut Hills new boys hoops coach
