She wanted a law degree. Instead, Shakyla Hill became a quadruple-double threat

Making it to the WNBA or setting incredible NCAA records never crossed Shakyla Hill’s mind when she arrived at Grambling State in 2015.

She had other aspirations. She wanted to be a lawyer.

Recording a quadruple-double in a game was never part of the plan. Getting two in a career wasn’t even a thought.

But it happened for the student-athlete who preferred law over layups.

“I probably said my first two years a hundred times, I’m playing basketball to pay for school. I’m not in school to play basketball,” Hill told The Athletic. “But then the (first) quadruple-double happened, and it kind of just changed the trajectory of the things that I was supposed to do because it allowed me other opportunities to continue playing.”

As March Madness continues, she is paying attention to the tournament brackets on both the women’s and men’s sides. Basketball always will be of value to her life, but she’s now 28 and works in compliance. Hill plans to start law school in August.

She just happened to achieve phenomenal feats while playing collegiately — feats that aren’t expected to be duplicated any time soon.

The 5-foot-7 guard finished her career at Grambling as the only Division I player with two quadruple-doubles. Only five Division I NCAA players in the men’s and women’s game have ever achieved that stat once.

The first one was enough to catch the attention of a national audience — one that included NBA All-Stars. It was during Hill’s junior season, when she had 15 points, 10 assists, 10 rebounds and 10 steals in Grambling’s 93-71 victory over Alabama State on Jan. 3, 2018.

The effort drew praise from LeBron James, Chris Paul and James Harden.

Crazy!!! Not every day you see a quadruple-double! 👌🏾 https://t.co/ScVxD1XUdD

— Chris Paul (@CP3) January 4, 2018

“When they touched on it, I think that’s when I realized this is way bigger than I ever imagined,” Hill said. “Then it just got uncontrollable. I think the next day, that night, I had to turn off my phone because it was going crazy.”

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Isayra Diaz was an assistant coach with Grambling at the time. She said when James spoke about it during a media session, that really got Hill excited.

“He commented on it saying how cool it was and all that, that no matter what level you’re on, it’s hard to do in general,” Diaz said. “For her to do it was pretty cool. I think we were on the bus for a road trip, and we showed her the (James) video. She started crying because he’s one of her favorite players of all time.

“When he is able to comment about that … it was cool.”

After notching just the 4th quadruple-double in women’s college basketball history (15p, 10r, 10a, 10s), Grambling State’s Shakyla Hill said she wanted to hear LeBron James’ reaction to her feat. Well, here it is: pic.twitter.com/IfWjzRcbJ8

— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) January 6, 2018

That game helped change Hill’s life … and then she did it again 13 months later.

On Feb. 2, 2019, Hill had 21 points, 13 rebounds, 13 assists and 10 steals in a 77-57 defeat of Arkansas-Pine Bluff. It was a special performance for her, as she is from Little Rock, Ark. Although the game was played in Louisiana, Hill, then a senior, was excited to play well against a team located 45 miles from her hometown.

That second quadruple-double, though unexpected, came with fewer surprises. After recording the first one, she was accustomed to the attention.

“I adjusted well. I feel like, definitely, those last two years kind of molded me into the person that I am now,” Hill said. “Everybody’s watching, and everything you did at that point in time was under a microscope. I think it kind of prepared me for the future and everything else.”

Hill credits her coaches for not allowing the moments to get too big. She was revered at Grambling, an HBCU best known athletically for legendary football coach Eddie Robinson and as the alma mater of Super Bowl XXII MVP Doug Williams and Pro Football Hall of Fame defender Willie Brown, among others.

After January 2018, media requests seemed nonstop for Hill. Fans and alumni wanted time and pictures — at home and on the road. Her social media following grew exponentially, and she became a celebrity in and outside of Grambling, La., with photos of her appearing in local stores and in the school café area.

Hill joked about having to be photo-ready at all times. Normally, she was fine with simply wearing a headband that never matched her shirt. But quadruple-doubles are life-changing beyond the court.

The 2017-18 season ended with the Tigers winning the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) tournament as a No. 3 seed and making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 19 years. Grambling lost to Baylor in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

But the Tigers made waves with a guard who once had basketball as a secondary option.

“It just came natural to her,” former Grambling coach Freddie Murray said.

Hill was recruited to play at Grambling by David Pierre Jr., who now is an assistant coach at the University of Texas-Arlington. Hill credits her first Grambling coach, Nadine Domond, for pushing her on the court by using a stern approach when she arrived on campus. Domond now is the coach at Division II Virginia State.

Pierre was recruiting another player when he saw Hill on film. She wasn’t as big on playing AAU basketball during the offseason as other recruits. Pierre said Hill was more into spending time with her family than competing on the summer circuit, which might have contributed to larger schools missing out on signing her.

“Hill was one who could have played anywhere,” Pierre said.

The Grambling coaching staff knew Hill was talented coming out of high school. She was a sophomore when Hall High won the Arkansas Class 6A state championship. The coaches considered her a game changer in high school, but they wanted to see her do more with that talent in college.

“We stayed on her about getting in the gym, putting in extra time,” Murray said. “She’d come, then she’d leave, and then come back. and then she’d leave. Initially, I think she was just kind of getting caught up in college life and enjoying college. I think it didn’t really click with her until going into junior year, when she really, really started putting the time in.”

That’s when the Breakfast Club became the norm. The Breakfast Club was a group of players who met with Diaz for workouts at 4:30 a.m., 90 minutes before practice. That was in addition to workouts later in the day. That group helped Hill mature as a serious college athlete.

“It took some time, but when she started coming in the gym with me and coach Pierre, it showed improvement in her game,” Diaz said. “I think once she started realizing, ‘I’m consistent with it, and now I’m reaping what I sow,’ it just went on from there. Then she just kind of got addicted to doing actual workouts and things of that nature.

“She started falling in love with the whole Breakfast Club.”

Hill became more of a team leader. She remained someone her teammates could rely on, both on and off the court.

“As stern as we were with her, pushing her, challenging her, she was as stern on her teammates,” Pierre said. “Sometimes it’s hard being the best player and being liked. She was our best player, but they liked her and liked playing with her.”

Hill finished her college career as a first-team All-SWAC performer her last three seasons. She was the SWAC Defensive Player of the Year as a senior. And, of course, there were the two quadruple-doubles.

No longer was she playing only to pay for school.

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Murray said Hill was projected as a third-round pick in the 2019 WNBA Draft after averaging 18.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 4.6 steals during her senior year. But Hill went undrafted. Murray said colleagues with WNBA ties liked Hill’s athleticism, but they wanted to see more from her that translated to the pro game, like playing in the pick-and-roll with post players. The 14-player Grambling roster during the 2018-19 season had only one player taller than 6-foot-1, so guards like Hill were forced to play bigger than they were in most games.

When Hill was going through the draft process, no HBCU players had been drafted since 2002, when Andrea Gardner (Howard, second round), Amba Kongolo (North Carolina Central, fourth round) and Jacklyn Winfield (Southern, fourth round) were selected. It wasn’t until Ameshya Williams-Holliday (Jackson State, third round) in 2022 that a player from an HBCU was drafted.

Grambling has never had a player drafted to the WNBA, and Pierre believes Hill could have been based on how she fared against opponents from bigger schools. He also believes Hill would have been an even bigger sensation had she played in today’s name, image and likeness era.

“She just was in the wrong era,” Pierre said.

After the draft, Hill chose to play professionally overseas. She headed to Serbia to compete with ZKK Kraljevo of the First Women’s League of Serbia (ZLS).

And guess who recorded another quadruple-double?

On Jan 26, 2020, a month after her 24th birthday, Hill had 15 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals in an 86-62 win against ZKK Partizan 1953.

“They made it a huge deal,” Hill said. “They threw me a huge party. I was on the news. It was a big deal there because (a quadruple-double) had never happened in that league.”

Covered two of these when @shakylaa_ was at @GSU_TIGERS and now she added to her impressive resume with a professional quadruple-double #womensbasketball🏀 #goat pic.twitter.com/OQOGnUfanv

— 𝘽𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙃𝙤𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙 (@brianhoward33) January 25, 2020

Her team went on to win the Serbian Cup. The team also played in the WABA (Women’s Adriatic Basketball Association) League and was 17-1 when Serbia shut down basketball because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hill averaged 13.3 points, 8.1 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 5.7 steals in the ZLS. She averaged 14.3 points, 6.4 rebounds, 6.1 assists and 4.2 steals in the WABA League and was the Defensive Player of the Year. She said she wanted her play that year to send a bigger message than delivering quality stats.

“How people talk about the SWAC and HBCU sports, they kind of downplay it,” Hill said. “That was kind of like vindication for myself, and also like, ‘OK, I am really a hard worker.’ Outside of the skills it takes to score, you definitely have to have a lot of grit and a lot of grind to get a quadruple-double because it’s not only time-consuming but energy-consuming.”

Hill wanted to give the WNBA a try in 2020, but she said a training camp contract with the Indiana Fever didn’t pan out because of the pandemic. She then played for Bashkimi Prizren of the Kosovo Women’s Basketball Superleague and won the Kosovo Cup in 2022.

Murray and Diaz said they weren’t surprised Hill had success in Europe. Diaz said she wouldn’t mind watching Hill give pro basketball another shot. Hill, however, is content with her current life. She said she is “completely done” with playing and also doesn’t have interest in coaching.

When she graduated from Grambling, Hill ranked third on the all-time scoring list with 2,052 points. She also ranked second all time in rebounds as a guard with 925.

Diaz said with the way Hill spoke during film sessions, it’s no surprise she’s pursuing law. Hill said she’s considering Southern, Howard and Texas Southern for law school. She also wouldn’t mind returning to her home state of Arkansas to practice.

“I can see her as a lawyer because she likes to debate and she likes to talk,” Pierre said. “She’s passionate. She lights up a room. She has a big personality that’s contagious.”

Hill is ready to take that passion to law school. She said she is leaning toward studying corporate law, but she is keeping her options open. Being a district attorney was a goal at one time.

The only thing that delayed that plan was basketball. And those quadruple-doubles.

(Photo: Ken Murray / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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