SPORTS DESK
Highlights
Impact Player Written by Christopher Hann
As a two-time Conference Player of the Year and a 2014 inductee into the University’s Athletics Hall of Fame, Ashley Hilton ’08 came to the Chargers’ rescue on a routine basis. Ten years after graduating, not much has changed. Hilton has devoted much of her professional career to post-disaster relief, working first for the Red Cross and today for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). As a Red Cross caseworker in New York City, where she lives, she helped countless people after Superstorm Sandy crashed ashore in October 2012. Three years later, Hilton moved to FEMA, the arm of the United States government responsible for responding to all manner of natural disasters — from tornadoes in Oklahoma to flooding in Colorado, from landslides in California to hurricanes in the Caribbean. As at the Red Cross, her work initially focused on Sandy survivors from all five boroughs. In a city largely defined by water — the Long Island Sound; the Hudson, Harlem, and East rivers; the Atlantic Ocean — it was grim work. “You heard a lot of really sad stories,” Hilton says. “It was very intense to go into the homes. I saw a lot of tears. I gave a lot of hugs.” In October 2017, Hilton received a new assignment: Puerto Rico. Hurricanes Irma and Maria had just unleashed a collective wrath that left nearly the entire island without electricity. Hilton had visited Puerto Rico five months earlier, staying in Ponce, on the southern coast. But what she encountered upon her return looked nothing like what she remembered of an island known for vast stretches of tropical vegetation. “I knew obviously it was badly damaged,” she said, “but even the grass was not green.”
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Photo by Jorg Meyer
You always want your leaders to be extensions of the coaching staff, and she was exactly that. She was the ultimate example of what a captain should be and a leader should be. D AY N I A L A - F O R C E WOMEN'S BASKETBALL, FORMER HEAD COACH
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