'Is my friend OK?' How BYU's defense rallied around 'tough' Jay Hill after coach's heart issue

PROVO — Kalani Sitake saw the name flash across his phone Thursday night, but he didn't think much of it.

The BYU head coach normally talks to his coordinators regularly, sometimes daily after practice, and second-year defensive coordinator Jay Hill is a regular in his call log.

He picked up that evening, and casually approached a conversation that would likely lead to scheme, personnel, or planning for the next day's 24-hour pregame meeting before the Cougars' season opener against Southern Illinois.

"What's up, Jay?" Sitake said.

"Hey Kalani, it's Sara," came the voice of Hill's wife on the other end. "We're in the hospital, and Jay had a heart attack."

"That was hard for me to hear," Sitake said. "All I cared about was if he's OK — is my friend OK? That was a huge scare, and I'm glad that they were able to get him on the right path to recovery."

Sitake and Hill grew close when they were assistants on Kyle Whittingham's staff at the University of Utah, where Sitake eventually became defensive coordinator and Hill was special teams coordinator before being named the head coach at Weber State in 2017.

The duo with a decades-long friendship reminisced often about their connection when Sitake brought in Hill to run the defense in Provo in 2022. Sitake wanted to know Hill was getting better, and that he was praying for him.

Hill had other ideas.

"He didn't really care about that. He was calling about the game," Sitake said. "I told him to take care of himself, don't worry about that. But immediately after we hung up the phone, he didn't want anyone to know about it or be a distraction to the team. ... He had already detailed out a story while laying in the hospital. Immediately, he started texting all the coaches as if nothing was going on."

Hill did all this while lying in a hospital bed at Timpanogos Regional Hospital in Orem, where doctors discovered two clogged arteries in his heart that required stents to relieve the pressure, as first reported by the Deseret News.

"Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be having a heart attack at age 49," Hill wrote on Instagram after he was released from the hospital, hoping to keep the news quiet until some time Saturday.

All the while, Hill wanted to keep the focus on his team. He didn't want his players to worry, and he hoped to keep the story out of the public eye for as long as possible.

Eventually, he wanted to get to LaVell Edwards Stadium and help lead the team to a season-opening win any way he could, which he did in Saturday night's 41-13 win over the Salukis. He even called it when he FaceTimed the team through a projector screen at the team hotel.

"To get that news of him going through that was devastating, to say the least," said defensive tackle John Nelson, who had three tackles and a tackle for loss. "A lot of guys, offense and defense, rallied around the idea that he pours his heart and soul into this program. He believes in us, and we wanted to play our hearts out for him."

Just 24 hours later, he was walking into the stadium to coach against Southern Illinois, seated in the box after being discharged from the hospital, communicating with Sitake and linebackers coach Justin Ena a defensive plan that held the Salukis to 231 total yards, 123 on the ground, and forced two turnovers and seven tackles for loss.

Everything seemed to be clicking, from Jack Kelly's team-high five tackles to Isaiah Bagnah's 1.5 tackles for loss to Logan Lutui, who had a tackle for loss and recovered a fumble that was eventually overturned on video review and didn't count among the Cougars' two defensive takeaways.

"It was actually incredible how fast and how precise the calls were," Nelson said. "It's a testament to how we run things and the system that we're playing with."

Hill made it to the stadium to coach from the box, but went down to the field during pregame warmups, when "about 80 guys were trying to shake his hand."

Nelson did, too, telling the coach he was praying for his full recovery — like many fans of college football teams from BYU to Utah to Weber State, and dozens of places in between, since rumors of his ordeal began trickling out late Friday night on social media.

"That's just the kind of guy he is," Nelson said. "He's always telling us to be tough, and tough guys do this. For him to have a heart attack and make it to the game the next day is pretty tough, in my opinion.

"Having him there was awesome. He knows the deal, and he was going to find a way to coach us the best he can."

In additional to his role as defensive coordinator and associate head coach, Hill also coaches the safeties and works closely with cornerbacks coach Jernaro Gilford in the secondary.

Jakob Robinson confirmed after collecting his ninth career interception that one of Hill's mantras with his players is to "be tough."

That idea has a new meaning now as they reflect on who their DC is.

"I can't really say anything now when he tells me to get up after I roll my ankle," Robinson said. "It's like, he just had a heart attack and now he's back here. It speaks about our coach."

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