In the final year of his contract at Morgan State, Donald Hill-Eley knows his time is winding down. Despite the absence of an extension, however, the coach is not fretting about his future.
"The uncertainty affects us all," he conceded. "[But] the things I can control, I can control. I should be getting my doctorate degree at the end of this year. I can control how I coach this particular team, and I can control coming to work every day and working hard. It's very unfortunate sometimes when you look at it. I've graduated more than 200 men and took over a program that hadn't won in 23 years, but I'm only evaluated by my record – not by what I've done for the community or for the young people. But that's the game of football. You don't sit there and lick a wound. You just keep working. I can't get into the situation. It took work and creating belief, and that's what I'm doing."
Hill-Eley was nearly out of a job after last season when he accidentally received in November an email outlining the search for his successor. Two months later, he was given a reprieve, but there has been no talk about negotiating for an extension.
Still, Hill-Eley has gone about his usual duties. He collected what was considered by "From the Press Box to Press Row" -- a Sirius XM radio show that covers sports at historically black colleges and universities -- the fourth-best recruiting class among all HBCUs, and worked to prepare the team for the season opener against Army this Friday night.
"The thing about it is, I'm going into the year like I have always," Hill-Eley said. "I've got 95 young men out there that I have to promote an education through football. Part of promoting education through football is dealing with adversity, and them seeing how I handle adverse situations, it tends to rub off on them how they'll do with that later. As I say to them all the time, you can't control what's happening to you, but you can control how you respond. I just go out and work. Go out and work and do the best you can and at the end of the day, let the chips fall where they may. The things that have happened, they're still things that have helped us. We got back on the job in two weeks because of the support and because of the help of the players that we had. We were still able to recruit the No. 4 recruiting class among the HBCUs. And the coaches we've been able to assemble, you don't get these types of coaches that we have knowing my circumstances to come in and say, 'Look, we want to be a part of that.' But when they believe in what you're doing, you just work and when you know you're doing right, all the outside stuff will take care of itself."
Then again, Hill-Eley's job could be saved if the team puts together a solid, (read: winning) campaign this fall. Players like outside linebacker Christopher Robinson clearly know what's at stake for the program if the team suffers through another 3-8 season.
"It would really almost have me so unhappy if they were asked to leave," the Baltimore native and Dunbar graduate said of the coaching staff. "But we have an opportunity now where if we win, hopefully, there won't be talk about if he's leaving. It'll be talk about how long he will be staying. … Hopefully, we'll be able to ensure that he'll be here for a long time rather than this last year. We have a new season and everybody is starting at game one. Fortunately, we have an opportunity to give him a better chance at staying."