Tracy Hill recalls it vividly, as if it were yesterday, not 25 years ago.

Without warning, her glasses flew off during a state basketball tournament game against Deer Trail at the old Auditorium Arena, landing on the hardwood floor near her team's bench.

Unable to see clearly, the Ridgway High School junior thought about retrieving them, then reconsidered when she heard a familiar voice, barking directions.

"You're OK," yelled Ridgway coach Steve Hill, Tracy's father. "Keep going."

On cue, Hill dribbled toward the lane, eyed the hazy outline of the basket, settled into her classic shooting form, then watched - sort of - as another feathery jumper swished through, giving her 43 points, a single-game state tournament scoring record.

"It was that kind of game," she said.

There were many games like that for Hill, a 5-foot-11 shooter with rare range and touch for her time, a groundbreaking era when girls basketball took off in Colorado, paving the way for Jamie Carey, Ann Strother, Abby Waner and other record-breaking Parade All-Americans.

Yet none of them scored 43 points in a state tournament game, a record that remains intact as the 2007 girls state tournament resumes today, a quarter century after Hill's big game.

But Hill's feats hardly end there. Twice chosen state player of the year, she averaged 17 points as a freshman, 34.5 as a sophomore, 37.5 as a junior and 44.2 as a senior, and finished her career with 2,934 points, another state record that never has been whited-out. Those numbers were achieved when there was no three-point basket.

After winning the Rocky Mountain News' Fred Steinmark Award, Hill continued her career at Missouri, Central Wyoming and Montana State, then moved to Australia to play professionally.

Coming full circle in 1998 as a coach, Hill's Nucla team won the Colorado 2A state championship, a fitting finish to a long, unusual odyssey.

"There was less opportunity then. Who would've thought a little small-town girl from Ridgway could play professional basketball overseas?" she said.

In fact, Hill was a pioneer of sorts, a member of the first big wave of star players from Colorado. Evergreen's Tanya Haave, Machebeuf's Shelly Pennefather, Aurora Hinkley's Bridget Turner and Fort Collins' Tracy Tripp helped put the state on the map.

None could shoot like Hill, who developed her classic form on a grass court and in the local gym in Ridgway - a town of about 700 in southwestern Colorado, near the San Juan Mountains.

Her teacher was her father and coach, who compiled a 735-366 record and led his boys teams to two state titles and the girls to another.

"Her shot started above her head," Steve Hill said. "She was strong enough to get up in the air without having to use her upper body to lift herself up. She had enough strength in her legs to go ahead and elevate with the ball above her head. She could finish it off with good arm extension and good follow-through. It was not a push shot at all."

Hill scored more than 40 points on 30 occasions and yet often sat out in the second half when her teams had large leads. One night, she had 48 points at halftime and finished with 59, a record that stood until February 2005, when Abby Waner of ThunderRidge scored 61 points.

When she was inducted into the Colorado High School Activities Association Hall of Fame in 1993 (her father also is a Hall of Famer), Hill held 21 state records and still holds 18 today.

"I'm definitely proud (of being a pioneer)," Hill said. "I believe that the girls who played year-round really set the tone for what is available to young women today."

At the University of Missouri, however, Hill wasn't able to convert her shooting touch into sustained success.

"It was quite an eye-opener," she said. "There were 500-600 people in Ridgway. There were that many people in my classes at Missouri."

Hill had better luck at Central Wyoming (All-America selection) and Montana State (averaged 20 points a game as a senior), then began a professional career in 1988 in Tasmania, an island off the southeast corner of Australia.

Roughly the size of West Virginia, it's the last stop before Antarctica, and a world removed from anything Hill had known.

Yet she was charmed by the rugged mountains, forests, coastlines and easygoing life in Hobart, the capital of 203,000 people.

"It was very low key, very calm," she said.

Basketball wasn't quite as laid- back for Hill.

"If I scored 20 points, it was more like scoring two. I needed to be up in the 30s, 40s, sometimes even the 50s," she said. "That's why I was brought there.

"What was amazing is that I never realized my high school career would play over into my professional career. At each (stage) of my career, there was pressure - tremendous pressure - to score points. It felt like the same pressure year after year.

"I'd feel it from community members and other teams (in high school). My brother and I were both leading the state in scoring - so there was a lot of pressure on both of us. We had a lot of negative feedback, people saying, 'Did you have to score so many points?'

"But the positive parts certainly outweighed that. We had a focus. We were really well-coached by our father. We were very centered."

Following her father, Hill turned to coaching in 1992, leading Nucla to five state tournaments, including the 1998 title. She also coached in the All-State Games in 1996, as an assistant with her father, and as coach in 1998.

Hill retired from coaching in 2002 to pursue a master's degree and to start a family with her husband, Kelly Arnold, a former Nucla coach.

"I'm taking a couple years' break to focus on being a mom," she said.

But basketball is never far from her thoughts. Shortly after giving birth to her son in 2005, she flicked on the TV and saw Waner had broken her regular-season single-game scoring record. It was a revealing sight.

"When she set the record she was on every news channel," Hill said. "It was fabulous. She was on her way to play Division I basketball and they really highlighted women's basketball. It was such a huge, huge obstacle for basketball to overcome to reach that point."

While Hill fondly recalls her high school days, she says there's no comparison between the two eras.

"People ask us, 'Could you take (Strother), could you beat her?' " she said. "Well, absolutely not. It's so different. This is such a fabulous time to be playing women's sports, especially basketball. In some ways I wish . . . I was born 20 years later.

"But I wouldn't change anything."

Family life - including her 2-year-old son, Steele - keeps Hill busy these days, though she recently found time for a game of H-O-R-S-E with her brother, Scott Hill.

"We went to the local park with our kids," said Hill, who might return to coaching some day. "It was really fun to be playing again, and having that adrenaline rush. It really sparked the fact, that: 'Boy, this game is really in our blood.' "

Turn back the clock

A look back at 1982, when Tracy Hill set a girls state tournament single-game scoring record that still stands.

• Late Night with David Letterman debuts on NBC.

• Chariots of Fire wins the Academy Award for best picture.

• America is introduced to Sam, Diane, Norm and Cliff as the sitcom Cheers debuts.

• Hot styles: mullet for boys and leg warmers, miniskirts and headbands for girls.

• BMX bikes are hot.

• David Hasselhoff rides to the rescue in Knight Rider.

• E.T. (right), Blade Runner and Tootsie score big at the box office.

• NFL players go on strike for 57 days during the regular season.

• Stanford senior quarterback John Elway finishes second in Heisman Trophy balloting.

• A Christmas Eve blizzard paralyzes Denver with 24 to 36 inches of snow.

• Chia Pets start to grow as a fad.

It's a new game

In the 25 years since Tracy Hill set a single-game state tournament scoring record with 43 points, the girls game has changed dramatically, Hill said.

• Growth of club teams and access to top-flight year-round competition.

• Weight training and specialized instruction.

• Bigger, faster, stronger athletes.

• Smaller ball and three-point line. "I was at a 2A regional basketball (game) last weekend and a woman sat next to me who used to play against my sister," Hill said. "And she said: 'What would we have done with the three-point line and smaller ball?' "

• Increased media attention.

• More opportunity overall, including professional leagues in the United States.

Records stand test of time

Almost 25 years after she ended her basketball career at Ridgway High School (1980 to 1983), Tracy Hill holds 18 state records. A few:

• Career scoring: 2,934 points

• Season scoring: 928

• Career per-game average: 32.2

• Season per-game average: 44.2

25

-• Career, free throws made: 541

- • Season, free throws made: 198

-• Career, field-goal attempts: 2,138

-• Career, free-throw attempts: 768

-• Season, free-throw attempts: 248

• Most points, state tournament game: 43

latimerc@RockyMountainNews.com

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