History of the Hill: WVU Football’s Law School Hill Tradition
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on July 13, 2015, by staff writer Greg Madia.
Before each football season, for at least a few weeks during the summer, West Virginia football players become familiar with one spot on campus more than any other place in Morgantown.
“Summer has been tough, it’s been really tough. We’ve had to run the hill,” said senior tight end Cody Clay.
Like so many players past and present, Clay appreciates the pride that comes with trying to master Law School Hill—the nearly 70-degree grass incline that spans almost 200 yards on the west side of Milan Puskar Stadium and plateaus where the university’s law school sits.
“I don’t like doing it too much,” said former West Virginia wide receiver and current Chicago Bears rookie Kevin White last summer. “We’re all dead after running it, but it works for us.”
Some ex-players swear they’d never run the hill again, but former Mountaineer and Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl champion Bruce Irvin has returned since leaving West Virginia to work out on the hill.
Irvin, who compiled 23 sacks in two seasons in Morgantown, is one who lives on in West Virginia football history alongside names like Tavon Austin, Owen Schmitt, Marc Bulger, Major Harris, and Sam Huff. Games like the 2006 Sugar Bowl, West Virginia beating Penn State for the first time in 1984, as well as the undefeated seasons in 1988 and 1993, are there too.
Unique to West Virginia is the fact that Law School Hill is also part of its football history. Not many other programs have a piece of physical geography so embedded in their tradition.
“It’s almost become like folklore where players say, ‘Yeah, back in the ‘90s guys used to run it’ like we do now,” said former West Virginia strength and conditioning coach Allan Johnson. “I am kind of surprised it has kept the tradition.”
Johnson is the man responsible for so many players appreciating both the struggle and triumph that Law School Hill brings out in an athlete. Now at East Tennessee State, Johnson actually had two different tenures at West Virginia.
His first stop at West Virginia came from 1982 to 1988, and his second stint was from 1993 to 2001 under head coach Don Nehlen. In between, Johnson spent time as the man in charge of strength and conditioning for the Baltimore Orioles.
“In my second tenure back, during the mid to late ‘90s, I said to myself there has got to be something we can do to increase the pain. We were looking for something to make our workouts a little bit tougher,” Johnson said.
Then, Law School Hill finally stared at him long enough.
“Sometimes we coaches are so smart that we’re dumb,” Johnson joked. “I kept passing by the hill as I would run or walk around the concourse outside Mountaineer Field and kept seeing Law School Hill. I had been looking at this stinking hill for about 10 years and finally realized that it’s such a great training tool.”
In its infancy around 1997, Johnson actually had players run up the wooden steps draped down the hill. The steps were clumped about ten at a time, separated by platforms.
After the first few runs up the hill, the veteran strength coach decided to just have the players sprint up the grass to the right of the stairs.
From there, Law School Hill became a permanent part of the West Virginia football program.
“It’s one of those things where you’re running vertically. That’s a major incline on a near 70-degree angle for 200 yards. You’ll know right away whether someone is in shape or not,” Johnson said. “Those last 60 yards are a true test of character and manhood. In the first few times someone would run it, we didn’t start running ten reps—we probably started at four reps and worked up from there. But no matter what, you could tell a lot about the kids in terms of their background. We knew how they were raised by how they approached the hill and how much effort they gave.”
More often than not, he found himself just waiting for the hill to strike.
“The most disgusting thing I’ve seen in my coaching career was one day when we’re running the hill. It was the middle of the afternoon, like 2:30 or 3:00. One guy gets down the hill and pukes,” Johnson explained. “He definitely had spaghetti because there were just spaghetti noodles going down around his chin and neck. When he puked, there were about five guys who were running by him, and then they puked because of what they saw. It’s the grossest thing I’ve ever seen in my job. It was a gut-check for sure.”
Over and over, the hill tested players, and those players had to overcome the adversity—which is one reason why West Virginia still uses it today.
When Johnson first implemented training on the hill, he had an outstanding strength staff. Current University of Tennessee strength coaches Dave Lawson and Mike Szerszen worked for Johnson, and current West Virginia strength coach Mike Joseph served as a graduate assistant.
“In terms of the hill, it’s changed a bit since we started doing it due to construction and buildings that have gone up around the stadium, but most of it has remained the same, since it’s a rite of passage, per se,” said Joseph.
Joseph has used Law School Hill for a four-week training period during each summer. His players run the hill toward the end of the week so they have the weekend to recover from the daunting task.
“In terms of the science and physical goals, I like it for speed endurance, especially because of the incline and having to push up the hill. We run it more as a sprint as opposed to just straight conditioning,” Joseph said. “I know in the past other coaches have used it for conditioning and just had guys get to the top any way they could, whether it was walking or crawling up the hill, but I like it for speed and power.”
Like his mentor Johnson, Joseph sees the mental benefits from running the hill for his players, too. He sees the correlation between athletes who succeed on the hill and those who succeed on Saturdays.
“The hill definitely adds some emotion. That’s one thing it brings out—both good and bad. You can find the true character of an individual when they run the hill. You find guys who simply can’t compete and others who can’t handle the mental aspect of it,” Joseph said. “But there are players who approach it with competition in mind and see it as a challenge. They want to overcome it, and those are the guys who become leaders and everyone else feeds off of during the fall.”
West Virginia has already finished its hill work this summer. Joseph mentioned Karl Joseph, Nick Kwiatkoski, Daryl Worley, Daikiel Shorts, and Shelton Gibson as players who conquered the task quite well.
When Johnson was in charge, he recalled Bulger, Aaron Beasley, and Mike Logan as three leaders on Law School Hill.
Johnson is glad Joseph has kept the tradition alive and sees it as a major mental advantage for the program over opponents for years to come.
“When those athletes are on Law School Hill, the only thing they know is what you tell them. You sell them on the hill. You could go to Austin or Lubbock, Texas, or Norman, Oklahoma, and they don’t have a Law School Hill to train this hard,” Johnson added. “So we at West Virginia have an edge. We try to create an edge, mindset, and attitude. The hill is as tough as any place in the country, and if those players complete this many reps today, it puts them above the competition.”
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