It’s 3 generations of Hilmers at North-Linn

TROY MILLS — Sometimes things just work out the way they should.

Bob and Mike Hilmer are coaching together this boys' basketball season at North-Linn, and that's a great thing. That Mike's son and Bob's grandson, Jake, is the team's leading scorer as a freshman phenom adds to the greatness.

You're talking about three generations of Hilmers on a team that's 9-0 and ranked 10th in Class 1A. Doesn't get any better than that.

And to think this special family reunion almost didn't happen.

A little over a year ago, Bob and Sharon Hilmer decided they would spend their retirement living in Winfield. They'd just taken their house there off the market after six months of not getting a sniff from any potential buyers.

The all-time winningest coach in Iowa boys' basketball history, Bob, 75, was going to spend this season at nearby WACO High School, and that'd be it. Then fate intervened.

'There was this gal who needed a place to live with her kids, and she asked one of our neighbors if our house was still for sale,' Bob Hilmer said. 'She called us, and my wife said she could come and look at it. They came and looked at it on a Saturday, and by Monday it was sold. Cash, no realtor or anything.'

Bob and Mike Hilmer always thought about coaching together. They suddenly had that opportunity.

'We'd talked, obviously, that grandpa would come up by the end of my high-school career, but it's nice that it worked out to where he got to come at the beginning,' Jake Hilmer said. 'He has helped because he can relate to where I am, my dad playing for him in high school and everything. I think that's helped a lot. If I can handle one, I know I can handle two.'

'It's been pretty good for me. I don't know what he thinks,' Bob Hilmer said with a laugh, pointing to his son.

Make no mistake, Mike Hilmer appreciates the specialness of this situation.

'I think he would agree with this, but it's a lot easier to coach together because I'm a lot older and hopefully a little wiser than I was back then,' said Mike, 47, who played for his dad at Forest City in the mid-1980s. 'I was a challenge to coach. With Jake, I think it's been a lot easier to coach him than it was to coach me because he has played so much more ball. There wasn't AAU ball when I played, so my dad didn't coach me until I was in high school. I've coached Jake since third grade.'

Make sure you get it straight that Bob and Mike Hilmer are co-head coaches at North-Linn. There is no 'associate' or 'assistant' title here.

They run practices and strategize together, record wins and losses together. Travis Griffith, who has head basketball coaching experience at Springville, is their assistant and one of the best in the state, they say.

'A lot of people have asked 'Well, why doesn't your dad just be your assistant?'' Mike said. 'I tell them that I told him for years that when he was done to come co-coach with me. Most of what I know, I have learned from him. The stuff I'm still learning, I learn from him. I wouldn't want him to be my assistant because I feel he is here (holds his hand at head level), and I'm here (holds it at chest level).'

This is Mike's 17th season at North-Linn, after two years at Lincoln Central and six at Estherville-Lincoln Central. He can pick up career victory No. 300 Friday night at Springville.

In an incredible coincidence, two more wins gives Bob an astounding 800 in a 53-year head coaching career that began in 1963 at Fredericksburg. He has a career mark of 798-342, including a state championship at Forest City in 1976.

He and Sharon originally moved from Forest City to Winfield 15 years ago to be closer to their four children and 10 grandchildren, who live in and around the Cedar Rapids area. If North-Linn can beat Springville, 800 wins comes into play Saturday night when the Lynx play Monticello.

'I don't really know,' he said, when asked what being Iowa's winningest coach means to him. 'When you start coaching, you worry about getting a job, first of all. Then you worry about your first game. I'm always looking at the next ballgame. Since we've been halfway successful, it seems like we're in the conference race most of the time. So that kind of occupies the attention span ... Yeah, the record is nice, and it's very satisfying, but, man, it's going to be broken someday. There are people who are going to break it.'

By the way, Bob is in no rush to quit coaching, saying he'll continue with this arrangement as long as he's healthy and as long as he's wanted.

'We have talked after every ballgame either one of us has coached,' he said. 'We always called each other and talked. We have exchanged a lot of information over the years. He goes to a lot of clinics, and I didn't always go to a lot of the big clinics because I didn't have big-time ballplayers. I'd just talk to other coaches at the high-school level because they had the same players I did.'

'When we started talking about doing this, we didn't know that co-coaches get wins together,' Mike Hilmer said. 'I guess it's that way in every sport, so that was a nice perk. I'm glad it works that way because he's got more time to watch film, and he's a stat man to the core. He's telling you how many points per possession you are scoring, and I'm like 'OK, good. What does that mean? Is that good or bad?''

Jake Hilmer was asked if the personalities of his co-coaches are similar or different.

'Before the season, I would have said dad was a lot more fiery than grandpa,' he said. 'But now I'd say they are both very similar. They are very, very similar. The acorn doesn't fall very far at all from the tree. Not very far at all.'

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