Forest City Alum Mike Hilmer named NFHS National Boys Basketball Coach of the Year for 2023-24

SPORTS NEWS JANUARY 13 2025

Twenty-four high school coaches from across the country have been selected as 2023-24 National Coaches of the Year by the NFHS Coaches Association. Winners of NFHS awards must be active coaches during the year for which they receive their award. This year’s awards recognize coaches for the 2023-24 school year. Recipient of the 2023-24 national awards for boys basketball is Mike Hilmer of North Linn High School.

The NFHS Coaches Association has an advisory committee composed of a chair and eight sectional representatives. The sectional committee representatives evaluate the state award recipients from the states in their respective sections and select the best candidates for the sectional award in each sport category. A total of 964 coaches are being recognized this year with state, sectional and national awards.

Basketball Mike Hilmer Troy Mills, Iowa

It would be an understatement to say that Mike Hilmer built a boys basketball dynasty at North Linn High School in Troy Mills, Iowa. Since 2015, Hilmer’s teams have won 234 games and lost just nine. Since 2018, North Linn has reached the Iowa High School Athletic Association Class 1A state championship every year – an amazing seven consecutive seasons – winning a state title three times, including in 2024. In 33 years of coaching, Hilmer – who left North Linn at the end of last year to become the superintendent of Bellevue (Iowa) Schools – has a career record of 525-239 and has been named State Coach of the Year six times. At the state level, Hilmer was on the Board of Directors of the Iowa Basketball Coaches Association for 10 years and the IHSAA Boys Basketball Advisory Committee for six years. In addition to basketball, Hilmer coached boys and girls golf and softball during his coaching career. Mike graduated from Forest City High School in 1987, playing for his Hall of Fame father Bob Hilmer.