A Knight to Remember: Ali Hillard

By Ray Popkess

 

In every city, there are people known as “pillars” who hold up vital aspects of community, education and philanthropy in order to create a thriving ecosystem. The Triad School District has produced a multitude of individuals who give back to the community that gave them so much.

This week, we highlight a more recent graduate of Triad High School and the current girls’ wrestling coach there, Ali Hillard. Hillard graduated with the Class of ‘17 and joined Triad’s coaching staff in the summer of 2024.

Hillard began her journey with wrestling at the age of 4, when her sister came home one day with a flyer that read “Join Triad Knights Kids’ Wrestling Club.”

“I was previously a fan of WWE,” she shared. “My dad was a huge WWE guy and he got us hooked on it. When I saw wrestling on the flyer, I knew I had to go do this. My parents told me a million times ‘It’s not WWE’, but I was convinced that I wanted to wrestle.”

Like a lot of younger wrestlers from the Triad community, Hillard attributed her love for the sport to Russ Witzig, former three-time All-American at SIUE and long-time head wrestling coach for Triad. At the time, Witzig was coaching at both the high school and the Kids’ Club. “He, to me, was Triad wrestling. He was there the first time I stepped into the wrestling room until the last time I stepped into the wrestling room,” said Hillard.

Growing up, Hillard also played softball as a way to stay active during the wrestling offseason. “Softball was my ‘fun’ sport. Wrestling was fun for me too, but it was much more competitive, more serious. I was able to train hard and compete during the winter and spend my time in the summer playing softball for fun.”

When asked about her first experience stepping onto the mat, Hillard recalled it wasn’t exactly love at first sight. “I was thrown off at first because it wasn’t like WWE. I was sort of going through the motions at the beginning and I didn’t fall fully in love with the sport until my brother joined about two or three years later.”

Hillard’s brother, William, is three years younger than Ali, but both were destined to be on the wrestling mat. “It was so nice to have William because I was always the odd man out [the first few years]. Nobody was necessarily picking the only girl in the [wrestling] room to go with. When he joined, I had a practice partner for life.”

From then on, Hillard says her life has been fully entrenched in the sport of wrestling. “When I was competing, wrestling was everything.”

As an adolescent, Hillard saw plenty of prosperity on the mat. “Before everyone hit their growth spurts in middle school, I held my own and was pretty successful against the boys.”

The transition from middle school to high school wrestling unpacked a brand new world within the sport for most athletes, but even more so in Hillard’s case. “That was one of the scariest feelings ever,” she shared. “I was so close to wrapping [my wrestling career] up. I had only ever been on a team with my brother or where my dad was a coach in some aspect.”

Despite the history of wrestling being stacked against her, nothing was going to hold her back from leaving her mark on the program. “It took every ounce of courage to go to the informational meetings and step foot in the wrestling room, a room that I had been in since I was 4. There was this added pressure that I had never felt before.”

Today, she recalls the moment she decided to stick to it with pride. “Looking back, I cannot believe I did that. I was so brave because I really almost hung it up.”

When her high school career was all said done, she had collected accolades that no girl wrestler had done before. She was the first girls’ MVC champion her freshman year and in 2014, she won the Illinois Kids Wrestling Federation (IKWF) Girls’ State Tournament, a tournament that was created due to the massive interest in postseason girls’ wrestling across the state.

At that time, there were no girls-only tournaments or events during the regular season even though the sport really found its footing while Hillard was in high school. Once the IKWF created their girls tournament, she noticed that a new wave of wrestlers were taking the sport by storm. “We saw Chicago and Southern Illinois girls come together and I thought ‘Okay, we’ve got a little movement here. We’ve got some numbers.”

After Hillard graduated in 2017 and set the foundation for girls’ wrestling at Triad, she began working at a local animal shelter with her passion for animal welfare. “Once I got out of high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do–at all. The local humane society put up a job posting, so my best friend and I applied–we both got the job. To me, it never started out as a serious thing, I just joined because I liked helping animals.” She spent seven years there and thought that would be her job forever.

When Witzig retired in 2024, Lucas Bernal took over as Triad’s wrestling coach and reached out to Hillard with a job offer, needing someone to help lead the girls’ team. “Seven years in animal welfare is a long time because it’s so stressful and chaotic. I was near the end of my rope with it. I kind of had one fit in the door and one foot out and I knew something was about to happen,” she recalled. “I got offered the coaching position and it just felt like fate.

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Wrestling is still not considered a mainstream sport and it doesn’t get the attention that the football, basketball and baseball teams of the world normally get. However, Bernal and Hillard utilize every tool they can to help the emerging sport grow. With some social media savvy, the pair are helping put Triad Wrestling on the digital map. “We’re trying to make wrestling cool, and by using social media, girls see our wrestlers and think ‘I can do that.’ It’s great for engagement and it puts our athletes on a pedestal.”

In her first year of coaching the girls’ team, Hillard had 12 athletes on her roster compared to the six girls on the team when IHSA sanctioned girls’ wrestling as an official competitive sport prior to the 2021-22 school year. Last year, Hillard had 16 girls on the team and this year hopes to have 20. “IKWF has their own separate girls’ division now and that is absolutely huge. As the sport becomes more established, it continues to keep growing. We’ve grown every year and show no signs of slowing down.”

Dubbing herself a trail blazer for girls’ wrestling in the Triad community, Hillard shared some of the hurdles she experienced as she progressed through the sport. “I had to go through so much heartbreak, judgement, so many difficult things that I had to overcome, not knowing that I was paving a path for these girls so that they don’t have to go through what I went through.” Now, it’s much harder for a girl to experience the same kind of obstacles when there are 15 other girls in the wrestling room.

One of her prouder moments as a coach is having the ability to send athletes on to college with full scholarships because of girls’ wrestling. “All of these universities and colleges are starting their programs. Girls’ wrestling is blossoming. I tell my girls all the time, ‘If you want to wrestle in college, there is a very good chance a school is going to want you. You don’t even have to be the best, you just have to be willing to work hard.’ Then, to see girls take their skills to the next level and get their education paid for on top of it, it’s incredible.”

Both of Hillard’s success stories were girls that didn’t start wrestling until high school. Kaitlin Wood qualified for IHSA State and has now qualified for Fargo Nationals representing the state of Illinois. Wood has since committed to Georgetown College in Kentucky for wrestling and will attend the school this fall.

Hillard also brought up the story of Claire Crouch, Triad’s first girl to qualify for IHSA State. Initially, Crouch was not planning to wrestle after high school but after her best and final season for the Knights, she re-adjusted her secondary education plans and is currently wrestling at Elmhurst College.

“To get to be a part of those girls’ journeys is so special,” said Hillard.

During her wrestling career, Hillard dealt with a lot of injuries like any athlete. “It was so painful to finally hang it up. But [coaching] is a way for me to heal. Being able to watch these young ladies and these teams find success is one of the most healing things I’ve ever done in my life. Just getting to be a part of this is a dream come true. I’m grateful for everything wrestling has given and continues to give me. I wouldn’t be the person I am without it.”

Hillard currently resides in Edwardsville with her boyfriend, Dylan. She works part-time at Taqueria Z and also does some pet-sitting on the side. She’s going back to school in pursuit of a teaching degree. She still loves animals, as she and Dylan have their own personal zoo.

 

If there are any former Knights you deem worthy of being featured in a future ‘A Knight to Remember,’ send inquiries to us at 1200 12th St. in Highland, Illinois 62249. If you’d prefer to send a digital inquiry, email our sports reporter, Ray Popkess, at [email protected] and he will respond to you promptly.