BYU Football Admires Toughness Of Jay Hill After Health Scare
Sep 1, 2024, 12:51 PM | Updated: Sep 3, 2024, 2:03 pm
PROVO, Utah – Two days after suffering a heart attack, BYU football defensive coordinator Jay Hill was in the booth wearing a headset during the Cougars’ 41-13 season-opening win over Southern Illinois.
“It was incredible. That’s just kind of the guy he is,” said BYU defensive tackle John Nelson. “He’s always telling us to be tough. Tough guys do this, and, you know, for him to have a heart attack and then make it to the game is pretty tough, in my opinion.”
Kalani Sitake’s opening comments on Jay Hill.#BYUFootball #GoCougs pic.twitter.com/MelH8yrWSf
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Jay Hill: Tough
On Thursday night, when Hill suffered his heart attack after practice, he wanted to keep the news of his heart attack under wraps. The only people who knew were head coach Kalani Sitake, who later communicated the situation with Chief of Staff Jon Swift.
But Sitake, who took on defensive coordinator duties for the first time since 2022, wasn’t worried about the game. He just wanted his longtime friend and colleague to have a speedy recovery.
“All I cared about, ‘Is he OK? Is my friend OK?’ That was a huge scare,” said BYU head coach Kalani Sitake. “I’m glad that they were able to get him on the right path to take care of him to recovery. But he didn’t really care about that. He was all about the game. ‘Hey Jay, just take care of yourself.’ And he’s like, ‘No, we’re gonna be fine.’ Then, immediately after we hung up the phone, he was kind of like, I don’t want anyone to know about it. I don’t want to be a distraction to the team. And I’m like, ‘Well, this is gonna be really hard.'”
had a feeling @CoachJayHill wouldn't let us take away the headset. pic.twitter.com/Sd3Hg9Cuwh
— BYU FOOTBALL (@BYUfootball) September 1, 2024
“He’s like, ‘No, we’ll have a staff meeting, and we’ll just work through it.’ His son had a race the next morning anyway, so he wasn’t gonna be there in meetings. He wanted to see his son. So he had already detailed this and planned it out while lying in the hospital. I hung up the phone and said, ‘Okay, we’ll see how it goes.’ Immediately he starts texting all the coaches as if there’s nothing going on. He’s just like, ‘Hey, let’s go.’ And I was just trying to do what he wished and that was to keep it quiet and not try to be a distraction.”
On Friday night, Hill spoke with the team via FaceTime while they were at the team hotel.
“He was able to share with them how much he loved them and cared about them,” Sitake said. “I thought that was really cool. It gave the players a good sense of relief.”
BYU football welcomes Coach Hill back for SMU week
Hill communicated with the coaches from his press box seat during BYU’s dominant win over the Salukis. He was on the new “coach-to-player” communication during spring and fall camp. Hill didn’t resume those duties on Saturday. Instead, linebackers coach Justin Ena took over that assignment for the season opener.
Before the game, Hill went down on the field and had a moment with his players.
“After our warm-up, the whole team went over. You know, 80 guys are trying to shake his hand. We shook his hand and told him we were praying for him, looking out for him,” Nelson said. “He was kind of talking to everybody. But yeah, just seeing him there on the field with us was really motivating.”
Most importantly, Hill looks forward to a full recovery and noted on Saturday in a written statement on X that he is “feeling much better.”
Sitake said Hill will return on Monday as BYU gears up for its first road trip against SMU.
“People love him, and how can you not when he’s such a good person,” said Sitake.
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and hosts the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU in the Big 12 Conference on X: @Mitch_Harper.
