Chapter 40: Brendon Hillis

Brendon Hillis, or Hilly, is a freshman at Pleasant Valley High School. He moved to the district in seventh grade. Before attending PV, he lived in Dewitt. Hillis is the oldest of three siblings. He has a brother named Carver and a sister. Brendon enjoys playing sports and video games with his friends.

Baseball is a tremendous part of Brendon’s life. He has been playing baseball pretty much since the day he could walk. Some of his greatest memories include throwing the baseball around with his dad. Hillis started playing traveling baseball when he was ten years old for the Barnstormers as a way to make new friends. While playing for the Barnstormers, Brendon met Luke Fuhrmeister, Brooks Reiter and Alex Melvin, who remain some of his best friends to this day. After playing for the Barnstormer organization for three years, Hillis and the majority of his teammates and coaching staff joined the Bettendorf Diamond Kings, a more competitive league that played some of the best teams from around the state. Hillis currently plays for the Pleasant Valley Baseball team led by coach Sandry.

When asked about his favorite part of playing for the PV baseball program, Brendon said that what he enjoyed most was the staff and players. He believes that Coach Sandry is a fantastic coach that does a great job encouraging and pushing his players for success. Hillis participates in all of the baseball lifting and workout sessions and believes that they have helped him tremendously in improving his skills. Brendon’s ultimate goal is to win a state trophy for the Spartan’s baseball program.

Brendon Hillis is an active kid. When he’s not practicing baseball he enjoys hanging out with his friends at the YMCA. At the YMCA, Hillis plays basketball and lifts weights. He is a competitor and pushes himself to succeed at whatever he his doing.

This drive goes toward school as well. Brendon knows that he probably won’t play sports past college and instead aspires to become an architect. In order to make this goal a reality, Hillis is taking as many STEM classes as he can. His favorite class is the intro to engineering class taught by Mr. Stutenberg. Part of the class is learning how to work with programs such as CAD and Designer that one can use to design homes. Brendon enjoys the fact that this class encourages creativity and that he can demonstrate his design prowess. Hillis wants to blend together his passions for sports and design to eventually run his own company that designs miniature stadiums based on real ones, such as Little Wrigley field on the Barnstormer complex.