After serving with U.S. Army ROTC in Kuwait, now an Oswego special ed teacher, cheer coach

Maggie Hill’s inspiration to serve country and community came from close to home.

Like Hill, her aunt also is an Oswego High School alum, Class of 1988. She went on to graduate from West Point and did 20 years of active duty.

“I idolized her,” Hill said. “She was a mentor to me.”

Hill followed her aunt into the service, joining the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps while at Ohio State University. She deployed to Kuwait for 10 months in 2014. Now Hill, a 2005 Oswego graduate, is a mentor to teens as a special education teacher at the high school and Oswego’s cheerleading coach.

“From a young age, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I was a peer buddy for an elementary school student that had cerebral palsy,” Hill said. “I fell into that special education realm, and it flourished from there.”

Hill did her undergrad in early childhood education at Ohio State before getting her master’s in special education.

She said being part of the ROTC at Ohio State taught her about time management, with early mornings that started at 5:30 a.m. and long periods of training.

“It started to shape me, got my priorities straight, offered opportunities at all levels to take on leadership roles and problem-solving skills,” Hill said. “The military teaches you the military decision-making process. You naturally use those processes in everyday life.”

The day she commissioned from Ohio State, Hill was a second lieutenant commissioned to the Illinois National Guard. She did training at an active-duty U.S. Army base. Upon completing that, she started using her teaching education working with kids with autism, then landed a job with Oswego School District 308.

“You have drill once a month, and then every summer go for two months of annual training,” she said.

Ultimately, in 2014, she went on a deployment to Kuwait. Leaving in January of that year, her experience initially was in the realm of transportation and eventually shifted into a logistics role. Her unit was responsible for maintaining the distribution center that was the whole country of Kuwait.

Anything that moved on the ground – tires, guns, bullets – Hill and her team were responsible for tracking. Units deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and if they any had pieces of equipment break down, they had to order it from Hill’s team.

In one instance, there was a surge in ISIS, and Hill’s team coordinated an air drop in a small village in Iraq.

“The most important thing over there is building relationships; you are literally half a world away from loved ones, and you have to rely on those people in building relationships,” Hill said.

Hill’s experiences in working with people and children from all walks of life has followed her from military experience to teaching and now coaching.

“In both scenarios, military and education, there is so much diversity. You have to learn empathy and have some patience and grace with folks,” she said. “In working with students and athletes and younger enlisted soldiers, you never know what somebody is going through.”

Hill’s introduction to cheerleading started in junior high with recreational All-Star Cheerleading. She did one year of cheerleading in high school at Oswego and did some cheer in college. She has served as co-head coach at Oswego with Emily Gaw for the past eight years. Under their direction, Oswego has qualified for state the past two years, with 2023 the program’s first state appearance since cheerleading was adopted as an IHSA sport in 2005.

Hill’s mission is to use her knowledge and experience to give back to the community that she grew up in.

Hill’s Oswego program trains all summer long, starting in June with practice and camps. Following that is the football schedule for sideline season, with a competitive season that runs from the end of October through February. They cover a couple of basketball games to round out the year.

“We wanted to change the culture and get them on the map and get them caught up,” Hill said. “I think cheer has this stereotype about it being a bunch of girls trying to cheer on the boys. The state of Illinois has come a long way with competitive cheerleading. Kids are getting scholarships in cheer now, and the state’s playing field is very competitive.

“Oswego needed a mindset shift as far as what is cheerleading.”

In working with student, athletes and younger enlisted soldiers, Hill has helped them examine their decision-making process and how it will affect their life going forward.

“I think sometimes this generation is missing that,” she said. “I tell my students and athletes to have fun, but make decisions that are sound. If you are making adult decisions, they come with adult consequences.

“I’m really getting to know them and spending so much time together and pushing them in ways that they know when enough is enough, helping them cope through heavy emotions. I saw it in Kuwait, and I see it every day.”