Hill left legacy that never left home
Some people spend their lives trying to leave the town where they grew up. Others spend theirs making sure no one has to.For the Hill family, that home has always been Killen.
Long after Harlon and Virginia Hill raised their five children in the small Lauderdale County town, all five siblings remained in the Shoals.
Their lives have taken them in different directions, but they have remained rooted in the community that has shaped them.
That lifelong connection will be recognized when the Harlon Hill family serves as grand marshals of the Killen Founders Day Parade this August — an honor that came as a complete surprise.
“We were shocked,” Harlon’s son, Jerry, said. “One of my sisters thought we were joking.”
The recognition honors more than athletic accomplishments or a family name. It celebrates two parents whose influence continued far beyond the walls of their own household.
“He touched a lot of lives dealing with education, young kids,” Jerry said of his father.
Before generations of Lauderdale County students knew him as “coach,” Harlon Hill had made a name for himself in football’s biggest stage.
A standout at Florence State Teachers College, now the University of North Alabama, he went on to play professionally for the Chicago Bears, earning the National Football League’s Rookie of the Year honors in 1954 and the Most Valuable Player award the following season.
Hill’s rookie season with the Chicago Bears was a memorable one. He set a team record for most receiving yards (1,124) and most touchdown receptions by a rookie at 12.
CONTRIBUTED/HILL FAMILY
Harlon Hill, who was in his second season with the Chicago Bears, was presented the Jim Thorpe Award after being named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 1955. Presenting the trophy is NFL Commissioner Bert Bell.
Jerry recalls his father saying that others were shocked at the accomplishments of a “nobody from a small north Alabama community.”
His legacy in the sport lives on through the Harlon Hill Trophy, presented annually to the nation’s top National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II football player, which many equate to the Heisman Trophy.
But after his professional career ended, Hill came home. He earned a master’s degree in education and returned to the Lauderdale County School System, where he became head football coach at Brooks High School in 1976.
He later served as the school principal.
There, he built another legacy — one that didn’t take place only in stadiums, but in classrooms, hallways and Friday nights from the coach’s sideline.
Jerry experienced that legacy firsthand.
“It was special, getting to play for my dad at Brooks,” he said.
Education was a calling shared by both of his parents.
“She was an educator for 25 years in Lauderdale County,” Hill said of his mother, Virginia.
While Harlon coached and mentored young athletes, Virginia spent a quarter of a century teaching students throughout Lauderdale County. Together, they dedicated much of their lives to public education, leaving an imprint on generations of local families and the generations that followed them.
Today, their commitment to education lives on through their children.
Jerry now serves as superintendent of Lauderdale County Schools, leading the same school system where his parents devoted so much of their lives and careers.
“Killen has always been our home,” he said.
For many families, children grow up and scatter across the country in search of opportunities. The Hills chose a different path.
Though each sibling has built an individual life, all five have remained in the Shoals, close enough to celebrate holidays together; raise families near one another; sit under the same Friday night lights; and continue investing in the community their parents loved.
As small towns across Alabama grapple with how to keep younger generations from leaving, families like the Hills represent something increasingly uncommon — generations choosing to stay.
