She has been beaten up by a professional hockey player, finished top 20 in a Swiss triathalon and was named No. 21 on Sports Illustrated’s list of Massachusetts Greatest Sports Figures of the 20th Century.
But Kelly Amonte Hiller lost one important game 10 years ago.
Falling in the NCAA lacrosse finals to Princeton her sophomore year at Maryland was an “eye-opening experience” for Amonte Hiller and solidified her life-long drive to win.
“Once you get that taste of losing, you really push your game,” she said. “I wanted to do everything in my power to never let that happen again.”
The Terrapins didn’t lose a game for the next two seasons.
Amonte Hiller, the 2004 American Lacrosse Conference Coach of the Year, has brought her competitive drive and hard-working mentality to Northwestern. The coach has instilled these values in her players, who put up a 14-2 record and earned an NCAA playoff berth in only their third year as a varsity team.
The 30-year-old Hingham, Mass., native has built her team, picking players from the East Coast’s deep talent pool and luring them here with her name — it all started with the Amonte name.
Playing with the big boys
“If there’s one word to describe our family, it’s very competitive,” said Kim Abbate, 37, Amonte Hiller’s sister. “It’s an all-out war, no matter what we do, when the four of us are involved.”
Amonte Hiller, who enjoys eating brunch at Clarke’s, is the youngest of four children in a family of athletes.
Abbate earned All-American honors in college field hockey and now coaches high school lacrosse — with the help of tips from her younger sister. Eldest brother, Rocco Amonte, 34, played both college and minor league hockey and now works for a hockey equipment company.
And then there’s NHL star Tony Amonte, 33, who played nine seasons for the Chicago Blackhawks and now skates for the Philadelphia Flyers. He also won a silver metal with the 2002 U.S. Olympic team.
But Amonte Hiller’s family, which still calls her “Baby,” said she might be the best of the Amonte athletes.
“My brother (Tony) is very talented, and he works his butt off,” Abbate said. “But Kelly is 10 times better an athlete as he is. I always rank on him, ‘Look at you, you’re not even in shape.'”
The Amonte children got their athletic start from their parents, Lewie and Kathy Amonte, and the sports fans put the kids into athletics to “keep them out of trouble,” Lewie Amonte said.
Kathy Amonte, a stay-at-home mom, coached the girls’ teams, and both parents took turns driving the kids to practices and games.
“They all seemed to love it, so we kept feeding it to them,” Lewie Amonte said.
The children always found a competitive game to play, including hockey in the backyard pond or boxing in the ring made by their father.
Amonte Hiller followed her older siblings to games and soon “played everything,” including softball, basketball, ice hockey, soccer and baseball. She would practice with her older brothers and their teammates, and the heightened competition made it easier for her to play against girls her own age.
“Kelly would play with her brothers, and they were competitive,” Lewie Amonte said. “She’d come home crying every half hour, and I told her ‘Kelly, you go back out there and teach them a lesson.’
“She marched down to the basketball courts and would play until they beat her up again.”
A budding star
Amonte Hiller said getting roughed up by her brothers made her “tough and hardworking,” traits she demonstrated as a high school athlete at Thayer Academy in Braintree, Mass.
Amonte Hiller first played lacrosse as a freshman at Thayer, and she went on to set school records in lacrosse, basketball and soccer.
“I was almost like the alien in high school,” Amonte Hiller said. “People were like, ‘Why is she working so hard? Why is she so driven?'”
Finding equally competitive teammates at Maryland, which owns a record nine NCAA lacrosse titles, was the “best thing ever” Amonte Hiller said.
Under one-time NU coach Cindy Trimshall, Amonte Hiller earned All-American honors for four years of lacrosse and one year of soccer at Maryland. She was named the Atlantic Coast Conference Female Athlete of the Year as a senior. She also set school lacrosse records in goals, assists and points.
Amonte Hiller made the U.S. National lacrosse team as a college freshman and played on the 1997 and 2001 World Cup champion teams. A knee injury has kept her sidelined for the past two years, but Amonte Hiller is training in hopes of playing in the 2005 World Cup.
“I feel like I’m still at the top of this game,” Amonte Hiller said.
“Confidence” is the first word Amonte Hiller uses to describe her play, along with “gritty,” “tough” and “hard-working.” She also said she learned from her college coach that a player must be positive and confident to find success.
“I’ve never been awed by anyone else,” Amonte Hiller said. “When I step toe-to-toe on the line out there, I’m going to beat my girl. I know that.”
New job, new program
Amonte Hiller brought her combination of grit and confidence to NU four years ago. Her job: re-establish NU’s lacrosse program after a 10 year absence from the varsity level.
But coming to Evanston was not an easy decision for Amonte Hiller. At the time, she was an assistant coach at a successful Massachusetts program. Her husband Scott Hiller, a former Massachusetts lacrosse star, was finishing law school in Boston.
But a call to brother Tony Amonte, who was living in Chicago, convinced her to head west.
“I told her to jump at the opportunity,” Tony Amonte said. “I’d been up to Northwestern several times, and I knew it was a great school academically, and the campus is beautiful.”
In three years at NU, Amonte Hiller has transformed a predominantly freshman squad with a 5-10 record to a 14-2 NCAA contender — something quite unprecedented, according to Chip Rogers, director of communications for the ALC.
The trend is for teams to take about six years to see postseason action, and only North Carolina, which qualified in its second season, made the NCAAs sooner.
But the Tar Heels faced less competition when they began and boasted an established men’s program.
So what is the key to Amonte Hiller’s success?
In short, the coach has attracted some of the nation’s most talented players to NU. Amonte Hiller says the school’s academic reputation makes it a “good sell,” but ask any player on her team, and they’ll say they came here for Amonte Hiller. They knew from her reputation and from lacrosse camps that Amonte Hiller coaches every summer.
“She’s so familiar with winning and success, and I wanted to be a part of that,” said Ashley Gersuk, NU’s starting goaltender.
The Wildcats rave about their coach. Freshman Kristen Kjellman, who led the Cats in scoring, said Amonte Hiller stresses hard work and mental preparation, but is always supportive and will accept mistakes if the players learn from the errors. The coach also jokes around with her team to “keep things light.”
“She’s the best combination of having the will to win and a positive and fun atmosphere at the same time,” said Gersuk.
Amonte Hiller is hoping that combination can give her team success this postseason.
But the former Maryland standout won’t be able to carry NU on her back this weekend.
“As a player, I’d just go out there and do it,” Amonte Hiller said. “As a coach, you have to give your players all you’ve got, and then they have to go out and do it.”
It will be up to Amonte Hiller’s players to find the same drive the young girl developed playing against her older brothers in the backyard two decades ago.
