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After two years Hill moved on to Rowan High in Hattiesburg. Over two seasons his teams went 22-0, winning back-to-back state championships. Hill’s greatest tool was fear, along with a willingness to skirt a rule or two in the name of victory. One of his stars, a flanker named Eugene Bournes, had played for him at Magee, a forty-seven-mile drive from Rowan. “I brought him with me to Rowan,” Hill said, “and, wink-wink, adopted him as my son. He lived with me. Man, could he play.”

Hill’s successes didn’t go unnoticed in the black college ranks. In 1963 Merritt left Jackson State to coach at Tennessee State, and the school wanted to bring in a handful of young assistants to help the new head coach, Edward “Ox” Clemons. Four coaches in their twenties and thirties were added, including the twenty-eight-year-old Hill as the offensive coordinator. When Clemons fell ill after one season, he was replaced by Rod Paige, Hill’s college roommate and a man who, thirty-seven years later, would be appointed the nation’s secretary of education by President George W. Bush. “Bob was my assistant, and he was unlike any coach I’ve ever seen,” said Paige. “He understood the power of fear. As a player, you didn’t want to disappoint him, because the wrath of God would come down upon your head.”

Hill served under Paige for four years, and the two worked well together. Perhaps Hill’s greatest coup came in the fall of 1967, when he drove to Columbia, Mississippi, one Friday night on a tip about a fullback named Ray Holmes. Hill wasn’t impressed by the kid, but couldn’t take his eyes off a little halfback with blinding quickness. Hill especially liked the bowlegged way the boy stood—Ellis had long ago taught him that bowlegged athletes possessed better balance. Once he returned to campus, Hill told Paige about Eddie Payton. “This Eddie Payton is the man,” he said. “This is who we want.”

When Paige heard he was five foot eight, 170 pounds, he laughed. “No,” he said dismissively. “Too small.”

Hill was undeterred. Having also been employed as Jackson State’s (relatively disinterested) baseball coach, he was gifted with a handful of “baseball” scholarships he could use however he saw fit. Though Eddie was by no means a scholarship-worthy baseball player, he hit the ball hard enough where the case could be made (he participated in two practices with the baseball team, never appearing in a game). He signed with Jackson State, and a euphoric Hill bounced into Paige’s office to deliver the news. “Paige was really mad,” Hill said. “But by the second day of practice he was sold on Eddie.”

When Paige departed Jackson State after the 1968 season and the school named another assistant, Ulysses “U. S.” McPherson, as his replacement, Hill seethed. He was smarter than McPherson, a harder worker than McPherson, and a better all-around coach than McPherson—and most everyone knew it. Hill spent two unhappy years as an assistant on the staff, then quit to solely coach baseball.

McPherson was fired after the disastrous 3-7 1970 season, but a frustrated Hill held little hope of being hired. He wearily approached John Peoples, the school’s president, and expressed his interest. “Doc,” Hill said, “I can bring you a winning football program. I know I can.” Peoples conferred with Ellis, the athletic director, who supported Hill. Yet at the same time the president and AD were hemming and hawing, Hill accepted a job as an assistant football coach at North Carolina Central. When word got out that Hill was leaving, Peoples pounced. “Stay here,” he told Hill, “and you’ve got your dream gig.”

He agreed to the job in December 1970, with a whopping five-thousand-dollar annual salary and an office the size of a dwarf’s coffin. Hill and his wife, Yvonne, were ecstatic.

The returning players, however, realized that hell had no fury like Robert Hill. As an assistant coach, Hill’s power had been limited. He could scream and berate and intimidate, but come day’s end it was up to the comparatively mellow McPherson to enforce