Basketball Legacy Continues

It was great to see former Winthrop High School basketball star Maureen McManus Hill back in the area this weekend coaching the Martha’s Vineyard High School girls basketball team in the Spartan Classic at St. Mary’s High School in Lynn. And the star of the Martha’s Vineyard team is none other than Maureen’s daughter, Erin Hill, who scored the 1,000th point of her career versus St. Mary’s in the semifinals of the tournament. Winthrop fans will recall that Maureen completed her All-Scholastic career at Winthrop High with 1,080 points, which brings up the question of how many mother-daughter duos have each scored 1,000 points in their careers? Maureen, of course, was the center on one of the greatest Winthrop High girls teams in school history, leading the Vikings to the Eastern Mass. championship (unfortunately, there was no state championship game that year). Maureen went on to become one of Lafayette’s all-time greats and a Hall of Fame inductee after scoring 1,813 points in her Division 1 college career.

Maureen’s daughter, Erin, is carrying on the family’s legacy in impressive fashion. Erin is a 6-foot junior center and one of the top players in Massachusetts with her amazing post moves, offensive skills, strong rebounding, and knowledge of how to play the position. An outstanding student who is a member of the National Honor Society, Erin has been contacted by such elite schools as Brown, Princeton, William and Mary, Lehigh, and Colgate. It brought back great memories seeing Erin score her 1,000th point not far from Winthrop, where her mother became a town hoop legend.

Maureen certainly acquired some of her basketball coaching methods from the great Ron Spinney, who foresaw the explosion in women’s basketball and is a pioneer in the high school coaching ranks. Maureen’s Vineyarders are 13-6 and heading to the State Tournament.