Denean Elizabeth Howard-Hill (born October 5, 1964) is an American athlete who competed mainly in the 400 metres.
At the Olympics she competed as Miss Howard in 1984, as Mrs. Howard-Hill in 1988, and as Mrs. Hill in 1992.
She competed for the United States, winning a gold medal at the1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles as a member of the 4 × 400 metres relay team, running in the preliminary rounds[1] with her sisterSherri[2] running in the final. It was a reversal at the1988 Summer Olympics held inSeoul, South Korea in the 4 × 400 metres relay, where both sisters won the silver medal, but Denean ran in the final with her teammatesDiane Dixon,Valerie Brisco-Hooks andFlorence Griffith Joyner. The team set the current standingAmerican Record in the event, which is still the second best time ever run behind the winningSoviet team in that race.[3]
She is married to boxer,Virgil Hill; her son Virgil was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the sixth round of the 2009 MLB Draft, currently playing for the Class-ABatavia Muckdogs.[4]
Denean Howard and her three sisters gained fame in 1979 when the four of them teamed up to set theNational High School record in the 4 × 440 yard relay forSan Gorgonio High School in San Bernardino.[5][6] That distance is now rarely run as theNFHS converted to metric distances, so the record still stands. Later teams with Denean broke the record for the slightly shorter4 × 400 metres relay, after sister Atra graduated and the rest of the family moved toKennedy High School (Los Angeles).[7] Denean was the California High School Athlete of the Year at Kennedy in 1982, following in the footsteps of her sisterSherri.[8] Also following her sister, she was named the national Girl's "High School Athlete of the Year" byTrack and Field News, two years in a row.[9] Her 1982 52.39 was theNFHS national high school record for eighteen years, before it was beaten byMonique Henderson.[10] At age 15, she qualified for the ill-fated 1980 U.S. Olympic Team which was part of the1980 Olympic Boycott[11] finishing behind sister Sherri at the1980 Olympic Trials, the first sisters to make the Olympic team simultaneously in the same event.[12]
United States
