The Hill family — (left to right) Nathan, Collin, Conner and Betsy — pose with Monte Morris (center) last Wednesday. Morris, a former Iowa State star and current player for the Denver Nuggets, worked out in the Hill’s gymnasium in rural Ellsworth. Submitted photo

An Iowa State legend and current NBA player training on a family farm in rural Ellsworth — that’s not a story you hear every day. Then again, the coronavirus pandemic has thrown normal out the window and left it in a ditch on the side of the road.

And that, in a nutshell, is how Iowa State legend and current Denver Nuggets’ guard Monte Morris ended up training on the Hill family’s property last week.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

“He was coming back from Denver to central Iowa for a number of days and he has looking for someplace where he could work out,” Nathan Hill, South Hamilton’s former boys’ basketball coach, said. “That’s how he got up here.”

Gymnasiums and basketball arenas sit empty and silent currently thanks to COVID-19. Not even the world’s best players are finding it easy to broker a space to hone their crafts.

Enter the Hill’s family gymnasium.

The former farm building now converted into a full-court basketball gym offered up the perfect space for Morris, who brought along a Nuggets’ trainer.

Through a friend of a friend is actually how Morris ended up having an audience of four — Nathan, Betsy, Collin and Conner Hill — for last week’s workout. Morris went to Iowa State men’s basketball coach Steve Prohm in his quest for a workout space, and that request filtered through channels to Nathan Hill.

“We’re good friends with (Iowa State women’s associate head coach) Jodi Steyer, and Coach Prohm knew she had some friends with a private gym, and that’s how he got up here,” Nathan Hill said. “Everybody is desperate for a gym right now with all the college campuses shut down.

“Who would have ever thought an NBA guy would be reaching out to use our facility?”

Collin and Conner Hill are both among South Hamilton’s all-time great basketball players, and they’ll join forces again at Morningside College in Sioux City next winter. The chance to take in the workout of an NBA player was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Collin Hill said.

“It was awesome,” Collin said. “Just the work he puts in as a professional and to see what he does … it’s not every day you get to see an NBA player do a private workout, let alone at your own place.”

Nathan Hill might not be a coach anymore, but he still watches basketball with a coach’s mentality. He said the chance to see the workout will be a benefit for his two sons.

“It was good for the boys to understand that when you workout, you workout really hard,” Nathan Hill said. “I’ve always preached that, and they were doing a lot of the same things that we practice and preach.”

Morris was a standout at Iowa State before he was selected by Denver with the 51st pick of the 2017 NBA draft. He averaged 12.2 points per game over his stay with the Cyclones, including 16.4 during the 2016-17 campaign.

Morris averaged 8.4 points and 3.5 assists in 21.6 minutes per game for the Nuggets this season prior to the league going on hiatus due to COVID-19. The NBA is hopeful it can complete the season at some point this summer.