Belleville West grad making big impression with Battlehawks as he eyes return to NFL

Since graduating from Belleville West in 2014, Brian Hill hadn’t played a game of football any closer to his hometown than a trip the University of Wyoming took to Eastern Michigan University, located in Ypsilanti.

Given that Sunday’s action for the St. Louis Battlehawks brought him from 500 miles away to 15 miles away, he wasn’t surprised to end up with 42 names on his ticket list.

“Hopefully he wasn’t playing for free today,” Battlehawks head coach Anthony Becht cracked.

Whether or not Hill’s full game check was cycled back to the team’s ticket department, Hill certainly cashed in for his hometown XFL team.

Hill rushed for a team-leading 89 yards on just 18 carries and caught two passes for 26 more yards in the Battlehawks’ 24-11 victory over the Arlington (Texas) Defenders, securing this version of the team a win in their home opener.

A touchdown run of 15 yards at the 6:48 mark of the third quarter was his longest of the day and put the game fully out of reach, elevating the Battlehawks to their third win in the season’s first four weeks.

“They ran the football incredibly well and better than anyone has this year on us,” Renegades head coach Bob Stoops said.

Stoops, formerly the coach at the University of Oklahoma, added Hill is a, “good, strong back. I don’t know how many times on that last drive that they got (in the first half) that we hit him at the line of scrimmage and he’d get five, six, seven yards. Just a strong, strong running back.”

Finding a way to bounce off an obstacle is a decent metaphor for Hill’s career to this point.

After graduating as one of Belleville West’s top all-time backs, he played for three years at Wyoming before the Atlanta Falcons drafted him in the fifth round of the 2017 NFL Draft.

The Falcons retained Hill on their practice squad before the Cincinnati Bengals signed; Hill then headed back to Atlanta after Cincinnati released him. He played three full seasons for the Falcons, starting three games and averaging an impressive 4.8 yards per rushing attempt.

After brief stops in Tennessee, Cleveland, San Francisco, and finally with the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League, the XFL came calling when the time came to select skill players for the league’s 2023 relaunch.

A strong draw

Knowing St. Louis would have a franchise, Hill was intrigued. And the opportunity to come home and play proved too strong a draw to resist.

“When I was going through the process, I knew that St. Louis had a team and I was thinking about how cool it would be to come back and play for them. Luckily, it worked out,” he said.

In addition to those 42 members of his family, extended family, and friends for whom he picked up tickets, Hill estimated another 10 people — including some of his high school coaches — were in the stands at the Dome at America’s Center to support him Sunday.

That enthusiastic cheering section was perhaps audible over the roar of the other 38,000 and change counted among Sunday’s attendees — a record for an XFL game — and claimed by the Battlehawks to be a modern record among spring professional football leagues.

XFL chairwoman Dani García was in attendance as well, and on top of being impressed by the passionate atmosphere, praised the value inherent in the community connections created by having players like Hill be such an integral part of a new and growing team.

“That’s part of our model,” García said. “It’s not about the football players getting farther away from the audience or the fans. It’s about them getting closer to the communities ... it’s very important.”

Emotional player

Becht, for his part, praised Hill’s impact on the locker room, and the connection he helped the team make with the crowd.

“He’s such an emotional player,” Becht said. “Just love his attitude. He’s a guy that just plays hard, every single snap. You know, he really does set the bar for practice offensively and leads by example, finishes every play, every snap. He just works hard.”

Hill is also playing through a minor hamstring injury, and put some of that emotion on display in an on-field skirmish in week three against the DC Defenders, who visit St. Louis next weekend.

The unspoken value in the grind through the XFL for so many of its players is the possibility that it could result in another shot at the game’s highest level. Hill, like very few others from his high school, has been there. On the field Sunday, he looked like an NFL player among others not quite at his level.

For him, most importantly, he looked like he was home.

“Just proud knowing I had family and friends (in the stands),” Hill said. “It was great just to ball out in front of them.”

It had been a while since he had the chance. He did not disappoint.