Grant Hill

One of the most accomplished NBA and college players of his generation, Grant Hill was officially inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a first-ballot member of the 2018 class. The seven-time NBA All-Star and two-time NCAA Champion has made the successful transition from 19 years as a professional athlete to leadership in business along with several television broadcasting roles with CBS Sports, Turner Sports and NBA TV. With a variety of college and professional experiences, both on and off the court, Grant was named one of five independent directors to the NCAA’s Board of Governors in 2019. Additionally, the NBA Retired Players Association named Grant a board member and an officer. Grant also serves on the Board of Directors for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, the NCAA and Lake Highland Preparatory School.

In 2015, Grant was added as a game analyst for the NCAA Final Four and National Championship game. He joined Bill Raftery and Jim Nantz to call games together throughout the tournament. Additionally, Hill has substantial on-site responsibilities during the TNT broadcast of the NCAA March to the Final Four and their coverage of the NBA Playoffs. Grant is also a studio analyst on NBATV's GameTime. During those broadcasts, Grant opines on issues of the past week in the NBA and provides contemporaneous commentary on that night's 10-12 NBA games while in progress. Grant also serves as an occasional studio analyst on TNT's Inside the NBA.

Simultaneously, Grant has significant business pursuits. He is an owner and Vice Chairman of the Atlanta Hawks. Shortly after he entered the NBA in 1994, Grant established Hill Ventures, a private company through which he has successfully invested in commercial real estate ventures including several multi-family complexes. Grant is a featured speaker before business, academic and large sales audiences addressing a range of topics including the NBA, the importance of teamwork, the private equity business, art, music and contemporary culture. Grant was appointed to the Commission on College Basketball established by the NCAA Board of Governors, Division I Board of Division I Board of Directors and the NCAA President to fully examine critical aspects of Division I men's basketball.

An Olympic Gold Medalist and the first rookie in NBA history to rank first overall in voting for the league’s All-Star Game, Grant was a member of Duke’s back-to-back 1991 and 1992 NCAA Championship teams. His success story started taking shape long before his basketball career began. Born in Dallas, Texas, Grant’s parents, Janet and Calvin Hill, stressed education and imparted common sense-based judgment to their only child. Graduates of Wellesley and Yale respectively, Mr. and Mrs. Hill ensured that any basketball-based success was built upon a stronger and broader foundation for life-long success. Growing up as part of the Dallas Cowboys family, Grant learned from an early age, and almost preternaturally so, what it meant to be a professional athlete in the truest sense of the word.

Maintaining broad-sweeping interests, and achieving diversified success, on and off the basketball court, define Grant’s story. Basketball may be what Grant is best-known for, but, as he is demonstrating by his varied pursuits and professional endeavors in retirement from the game, his parents’ plan helped lay the foundation for a lifetime of success.

A member of the 1996 Olympic gold medal winning Dream Team, Grant has received numerous accolades for his dedicated efforts on behalf of varied social causes, including the Horizon Award presented by the United States Congress, the Community Service Award from Variety Children’s Charity, and the Rich and Helen DeVos Community Enrichment Award. Additionally, Grant’s overall contributions to the game of basketball were recognized by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as the winner of the Mannie Jackson Basketball's Human Spirit Award for embracing the core values of the game through hard work, dedication, and resilience, as well as striving to continuously improve the community, and making an ongoing commitment to others. Grant spent four years playing for the Blue Devils and was inducted into the Duke Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2016 for his contributions to the program. Grant was also named the 2017 recipient of the NCAA President’s Gerald R. Ford Award, recognizing his significant leadership as an advocate for college sports.

The Detroit Pistons selected Grant with the third overall pick in the 1994 NBA Draft, and his NBA career started off with the same success that he enjoyed during his time at Duke; winning the 1994-95 NBA Rookie of the Year; and, becoming the first-ever rookie to lead the NBA’s All-Star fan balloting. Grant was a seven-time NBA All-Star and joined Wilt Chamberlain as the only two players in NBA history to lead their respective teams in points, rebounds and assists per game three times. He is one of only six players in NBA history to average 20 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists per game through his first six NBA seasons—the other five are Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and LeBron James. Hill is the only three-time winner of the NBA Sportsmanship Award and the first and only active NBA player to serve on the Board of Governors for the National Basketball Hall of Fame.

Grant’s career was hampered—and nearly ended prematurely altogether—by a devastating ankle injury. He suffered the injury in 2000 and was forced to sit-out repeatedly over the next four seasons recovering from the injury and multiple related setbacks.

Grant’s story includes great lessons in dealing with adversity and, in perseverance. He eventually returned from his injury to play an additional nine seasons including three more in Orlando, five in Phoenix and one in LA with the Clippers. Grant retired in 2013 after 19 NBA seasons as one of only 17 players in NBA history to top 17,000 career points, 6,000 rebounds and 4,000 assists.

A 1994 graduate of Duke University with a degree in History, Grant was a member of Duke’s back-to-back NCAA National Championship-winning teams in 1991 and 1992; was voted the 1994 ACC Player of the Year, and unanimously as a First Team All-American; was named the Henry Iba Corinthian Award winner as the nation’s top defensive player in 1993; and, became the first player in ACC history to tally more than 1,900 points, 700 rebounds, 400 assists, 200 steals and 100 blocked shots. Grant’s jersey (#33) is one of only 13 players to have been retired by Duke, and he recorded perhaps the most famous assist in NCAA history with his last second, touchdown-styled, three-quarter court pass to Christian Laettner in Duke’s iconic 1992 NCAA Tournament Regional Final win over Kentucky.

Grant formerly sat on the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition during the Obama administration, and a constant throughout his life has been his dedication to a healthy lifestyle. He was also highly involved with the former First Lady Michelle Obama’s "Let's Move" campaign, which aims to put children on the path to a healthier future by providing access to more nutritional food and physical activity.

As evidenced by his editorial in the New York Times after ESPN’s 30 for 30 video on the Fab Five—Grant takes great pride in the strength of his family, and gives a nod of appreciation to the great role models, teachers and coaches who have imparted foundational lessons on leadership pertaining to basketball and to life along his journey.

Grant takes special care to pay forward unto others; giving a nod of appreciation to what was bestowed upon him. Grant’s philanthropic generosity includes millions in gifts to educational programs as well as social programs with meaning in his life. He has given numerous gifts to his alma mater, Duke, including the Calvin Hill Scholarship at the Duke Divinity School. Additionally, he has funded programs including Child Abuse Prevention, the Grant Hill Achiever Scholarship programs in Orlando and Detroit, and contributions to Habitat for Humanity. Grant and his wife, 7-time Grammy-nominated recording artist Tamia, have given these donations as well as countless others to various causes and beneficiaries over the past two decades by way of the Grant and Tamia Hill Foundation.

Grant is the Chairman of Duke University Basketball’s Legacy Fund, and previously served on the boards of the Phoenix Country Day School and the Urban Health Initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, including being appointed as the Chairman of the Initiative’s advisory committee. Grant has also served on the board of the International Special Olympics, including serving as a vice-chair to their millennium fundraising effort; and, he has chaired the committee to Combat Teen Pregnancy, and served on the board of the Committee to Combat Child Abuse.

While all of his charitable work has been inspiring, Grant turned a lifelong love of art into what may be his most benevolent endeavor off the court. One of the world's premier collectors of African American art, Grant wanted to draw attention to a facet of popular culture that has gone unrecognized and unappreciated for far too long. He sponsored a nearly three year, seven city tour of his personal art collection entitled “Something All Our Own: The Grant Hill Collection of African American Art.” This is an atypical example of an athlete capitalizing on the incredible power and influence that is often left unexplored by professional athletes. More than 1.5 million visitors viewed his collection in seven venues over a three-year period. Many of those were first-time visitors to an art museum. Grant understands the power of the modern young athlete to positively influence generations both on and off the court.

Grant extended the pursuit of another off the court interest by forming a production company and co-produced three documentary films, "Starting at the Finish Line," chronicling the life of influential and inspirational Duke Track coach and Professor Al Buehler, "Duke 91 & 92: Back to Back" about the 1991 and 1992 back to back Duke national championship teams and “A Most Beautiful Thing,” telling the story of the first African American high school rowing team in the country. Duke 91 & 92 aired on Turner Sports' truTV in advance of Turner Sports' and CBS Sports' coverage of the 2012 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, which airs exclusively on TBS, CBS, TNT, and truTV

The Hills currently reside in Orlando, Florida and are the parents of Myla Grace and Lael Rose.