For the last two months, Bill Hillhouse was in intense pain.

The stabbing spasms in his abdomen continued to escalate to where, two weeks ago, he couldn’t eat with such intense pain which, according to his long-time girlfriend Sharon Shore, “reached Level 10.”

On Monday of this week, it all became too much to bear and Sharon took Bill first to the emergency room in Midlands Hospital in Papillon, Nebraska before he was transferred to Bergen Mercy Hospital eight miles away.

Kept under observation that day, he was “poked and prodded” as Bill recalls and had a CP scan which revealed shocking news: Bill has Late Stage 4 pancreatic cancer and was told he had weeks, perhaps months, to live.

“It wasn’t a case of ‘if,” Bill says, “but ‘when.’”

On Thursday night he was released to go home and mull his future, which is certainly uncertain, and to decide how to pass the devastating news around to family, friends and— perhaps most distressing of all—to the hundreds of past and present pitching students and their parents he’s worked with for decades.

One thing became apparent very quickly, though: the love and appreciation those who know Bill inside and outside of softball have for him.

Sharon started a GoFundMe Thursday morning and by the end of the day it was over $5,000. By mid-day Friday it was nearing $10,000 and growing with 64 donations which ranged from $10 to $1,500.

Click HERE to see the GoFundMe titled: Help Bill Hillhouse Through His Cancer Battle.

But it’s not just the financial support, it’s the emotional support those who know him have shared.

It’s easy to see why.

“Bill is selfless,” Sharon says. “He didn’t want to go to the hospital because he didn’t want to cancel lessons and disappoint the families.

When asked who are some of the noteworthy students he’s worked with, he defers because he wants to give them the credit:

“I don’t want to seem like my work with them is what helped them advance; what they do with their softball abilities is the difference. I don’t want to take the credit, it’s not really fair because it’s what they do with their talents and hard work that is key, not if I had anything to do with it.”

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Softball Background

It may surprise some that Bill’s softball expertise and vast knowledge comes from his extensive time paying men’s fastpitch… and at a very high level too.

He was a two-time member of the USA National team, was the Pan American Games MVP, was a U.S. Olympic Festival Gold medalist, a three-time Men’s Major National champion, a 2022 Hall of Fame inductee and so on.

He literally played all over the world including eight seasons competing in New Zealand, one in Australia and, of course, all his notable successes at home in the U.S. He began playing with the big boys at age 11 and never looked back.

In 1993, Bill became the youngest pitcher to play for the U.S. Men’s National Team and he even served as an ISC Commissioner from 1997 to 2013.

Bill got to know a tremendously success men’s fastpitch star that those following women’s softball certainly know:  Texas Longhorn head coach Mike White.

“Mike was my idol,” Bill says. “I looked up to him and got to play with him on the USA Team.”

The two have remained close, although Bill has sometimes has used his witty sense of humor to his enjoyment and at Coach White’s expense.

“For whatever it’s worth, Mike is a fantastic golfer.  He came to New Zealand to visit his family when I was playing there and stayed with me for a few days and we golfed every day.”

“I routinely tell girls I work with that are going to visit (the Univ. of) Texas and are being recruited by him that I beat Mike at golf and to make sure they tell him that I told them about me beating him. “Of course he beat me by 40 strokes and anybody who has seen the two of us play golf knows the lunacy of the statement I’m making claiming to have beaten him!”

Coach White speaks highly of his former teammate as well:

“Bill was able to teach himself how to pitch by being an absolute student of the game. He’s a very avid fastpitch aficionado who cared deeply about all facets of the game.”

“We played together on the 2000 WBSC USA men’s team that competed in South Africa where he stepped on to the international stage as a young U.S. born pitcher.”

“Billy has devoted this life to fastpitch both at the men’s and women’s game and softball will bear the fruits of Bill’s influence at the youth level for years to come.”

If there’s one thing Bill says he wishes he could impart to the women’s softball side, it would be to impress the impact the men’s game has had.

“My biggest wish is that people would know and appreciate how we got to where we are today.”

“The popularity of the girls’ game started in men’s softball. Mike (White) is a great example and so are others like Jeremy Manley (pitching coach Arizona State, Peter Meredith (pitching coach at BYU), Jody Hennigar (pitching coach at Cornell) and many others. These are the best of the best and those examples are just pitchers! It’s the same in hitting.”

In 2002, Bill opened up his own line of business called House of Pitching which allowed him to share his expertise and insights world-wide. In time, his reputation would lead him to assistant coaching stints at universities such as the Univ. of Georgia, Providence and Drexel.

In time, he became a consultant and taught one-on-one lessons and became known as one of the top pitching minds in the game.

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An Example of Success

Bill has compiled a list of coaching, training and developmental successes that is longer than the 43 feet between the mound and the plate.

Perhaps his most famous product currently is Teagan Kavan, the sophomore pitcher with the Texas Longhorns who had a remarkable year in leading the school to its first-ever college softball title.

Teagan was the 2025 Women’s College World Series Most Outstanding Player and was in the circle to close out the best of three wins over Texas Tech… here’s the final pitch of this year’s NCAA championship game which she threw:

As a sophomore this year with UT, Teagan went 28-5 with four saves, a 2016 ERA and had 230 strikeouts in 207 innings to lead the Univ. of Texas to its first-ever WCWS championship game. She also set a World Series record for the most innings pitched (31.2) without allowing an earned run.

Teagan began working with Bill starting at the tender age of 13 and credits him with much of her success.

“For five years once a week, my parents either drove me to Omaha or Bill drove to Des Moines to work with me and other Iowa Premier pitchers,” Teagan recalls.

“There was never a dull moment in my weekly lessons. He’d always ask silly questions and had a joke to dish out at any moment. Bill cares about his students as people first. He cares about their well-being and life outside of the circle.”

“Bill is a vital piece of my development and success as a pitcher, although he’d never admit that. He keeps me steady, always reminding me to not let the highs get too high or the lows get too low. Bill has believed in me since Day 1 and without his guidance I may not be where I am today.”

In his usual, typically humble way, Bill defers the credit when it comes to his help in advancing Teagan’s career and only talks about her because she is brought up first in conversation.

“She was already in a class by herself by the time I started to see her,” he explains. “It’s not like I suddenly turned a frog into a princess.   I think something that helped me with Teagan was that I spoke to her from pitching experience.   It’s important that pitching students learn proper mechanics, but they also need to include their own individuality.”   

“It helped Teagan a lot that I was able to demonstrate everything I talked to her about so she could see it.  That has always been an invaluable piece of my coaching—the ability to demonstrate.”

The coach also admits working with someone so talented wasn’t easy for him.

“Teagan was a challenging student in some ways because it’s not very often that pitchers with her talents and ability come around.  Usually in cases like hers, the student quickly surpasses the teacher and skill, understanding and ultimately experience so it was always a challenge to keep up with Teagan’s development because she just did things better and understood things faster than the majority of girls who pitch.”

“Teagan learned pitching from me with the same basic principles and philosophy that I grew up with.  We threw three pitches: the rise ball, drop ball and change-up.   There’s no such thing as eight pitches and if you have a pitching coach telling you there is you need to run from him or her!”

“There’s way too many people who confuse good pitching with bad hitting so it can be easy to think someone’s on the right track when they’re racking up strikeouts and wins.   But the further up the food chain you go in the game, the less you can get by with smoke and mirrors.”

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Iowa Premier Goes All In

Teagan Kavan isn’t the only Iowa Premier product that Bill has worked with—not by a long shot.

Organization head Greg Dickel has worked closely with the pitching instructor for half a decade and is a big fan.

“Bill has been a mainstay in fastpitch softball both in the men’s and women’s sides,” Greg begins.

“I’ve developed a close relationship with him over the last five years as he’s been the Iowa Premier’s pitching consultant with us. I turned Teagan on to him after her 13-year-old season along with several others in our organization.”

“Bill has made a complete impact on the organization as a whole during that time and he’s been a great influence to our kids and a personal friend of mine.”

“How did you get introduced to Bill initially” the long-time club coach was asked.

“He was the pitching coach at Creighton and that’s how I met him,” Greg remembers.

“He was a D1 pitching coach at a showcase event and was watching some of our teams. I had heard a lot about him and his fastpitch career and it helped that Creighton is only about eight miles to the west of Iowa Premier’s base.”

“Bill moved to Omaha and kicked up his lesson business there and that’s how our relationship with him really picked up.”

Showing his level of dedication to helping pitchers realize their maximum potential, Bill would drive two hours one way to work with a majority of the Iowa Premier pitchers ages 13 to 17 every Wednesday night at the program’s training facility in Des Moines, Iowa.

“That’s a four-hour roundtrip Bill would make every week,” Greg marvels. “It just goes to show how important it is for him to be there for our kids.”

Have the players and their families appreciated the pitching guru’s involvement? Listen to what some of the Iowa Premier players and their parents say today about working with Bill:

• “Coach always makes me feel comfortable… he let me pick the playlist which was always great.” – Morgan Frailey, RHP, Iowa Premier 14U National
• “Riley just started working with Bill this summer and has done wonders for building Riley’s confidence and her love for the game. I haven’t yet met him and had planned to with her in August to meet him and thank him! Riley said hands down he’s the best pitching coach she has ever had and that no one broke down pitching for her like Bill did.” – the mother of Riley Bebb, a Central Missouri commit
• “’K’ is a girl of few words but Bill had a knack for cracking that with humor and translating his knowledge of pitching to her in a special way!” – the mother of Kaydence Delt, a 2026 pitcher for Iowa Premier 18U National team 

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Facing the Future

This week has been a whirlwind for Bill who says he knew something was wrong for a while.

“I was getting pains in places I normally didn’t and dropped 30 pounds rapidly. I honestly through I had intestinal blockage.”

Before being release on Thursday, Bill was provided with medicine to help him get comfortable. The first pill for the legendary instructor was $400. Moreso than the cost of the treatment, however, was the decision he has to make in deciding if he wants to do it at all.

“With pancreatic cancer there’s a 100 percent termination rate,” Bill states candidly. “I have to decide if I want to do radiation which could delay it a couple months, but I don’t know if I want to do that. Chemo is the cure and I wonder if it’s worse than the disease. If there’s no cure, do I want to poison myself? I don’t know.”

Cancer has been a harsh reality in Bill’s family before it was diagnosed this week. His mother died of it when he was young and his father is “still with me,” Bill says, “but he is dealing with prostate cancer and it’s spread into his stomach.”

He was always aware the “C” word could be a possibility.

“It didn’t come of the blue,” he continues. “I knew all along it was a possibility. I had a loss of appetite and I hadn’t been eating like I had before. I would still work and had painkillers for back pains from pitching. I was going through painkillers so fast that at one point I had to go to the ER.”

Bill says he plans on continuing to work with his young pitching students.

“I hope to still do lesson before I check out.”

He’s philosophical about his pending passing.

“I’m a believer (in God) so I hope I’m going to the best place (Heaven) where every game is a no-hitter! Seriously, though, it feels like I was hit by a truck. We always wonder how philosophically we’re going to die and now I know how I will. There’s no point in being mad about it.”

In the GoFundMe page, Sharon captured a beautiful recap of who Bill is when she wrote:

“He is a Son, Brother, Uncle, Boyfriend, Nephew, Cat Daddy (he’s going to roll his eyes when he reads that one!) and to many of you, a friend, a softball legend, and a beloved coach. He’s someone whose laugh fills a room, whose stories never end on time, and who’s helped more people than he’ll ever take credit for.”

“But Bill’s most cherished role? That would be Dad.”

His son Alex is the pride of his life. A kind, dedicated young man, and a gold medalist on the Danish Paralympic swimming team. Bill’s face lights up whenever he talks about Alex — especially when recounting the moment Alex took home Gold in Paris last summer. That love is deep, unwavering, and incredibly beautiful.”

Sharon says Bill’s son from a previous marriage means the world to him.

“Alex is his greatest joy,” she explains. “He is on the Danish Paralympic national team because his mom is Danish. Alex has been to the Danish royal palace several times and met with the king, queen and their children. He was also Denmark’s Sports Person of the Year for 2024.”

The father and son have a very close bond and will soon be reunited.

“Although Alex is training for the World’s, we expect to have him here next week. They share a passion for sports, including their dedication to training, and they will miss that.”

How much does Bill love his son?

When he and his wife divorced, she wanted to move back to Denmark with Alex and the hands-on dad had to face the possibility of his son being halfway around the world.

“It was the hardest decision of my life, letting that happen and agreeing to it.” Bill explains. “But I literally flew to Denmark every five to six weeks to see him for a week at a time.   Sometimes it was more, sometimes it was less, but on average I flew to Europe 12 times a year since 2009 to go spend a week with my son.”

The proud father got creative in how he would be with his son as often as possible.

“I would take the airline vouchers every single week when I would travel to do clinics and lessons.  I would use those vouchers to fly over and see my son then I would use my frequent flyer miles to fly him over to visit me.”

Touchingly, the proud father is already looking ahead of how he’ll use the donations from the GoFundMe campaign.

“Whatever is left over from the GoFundMe will go to my son and the advancement of his swimming.   It destroys me to think I won’t get to see him in Los Angeles, 2028 (Olympic Games).”

Whatever happens (and when), the question is asked of Bill: “How does you want to be remembered?”

“I hope to be remembered as a gentleman first and a softball person second,” he says. “I don’t know what I’m going to be remembered for but I hope softball-wise it will be how much I love the game. Because of softball, I’ve been to six of the seven continents.”

“Softball has given me everything.”

— Brentt Eads/Line Drive Softball