Copyright Austin Daily Herald
Austin senior Cole Hebrink is about to embark on a farewell tour like none other this winter. Cole is the youngest of seven Hebrink children and all of them have played for the Packers. In fact, there has been a Hebrink on either the boys or girls varsity basketball team for the last 25 seasons, starting when Anna, the oldest sibling, began playing in Austin. Little did Anna know that she would be a teacher at AHS, and the head Riverland Community College women’s basketball coach with a family of her own before her youngest sibling would play his final season for the Packers. “I think Cole was a surprise to everyone,” Anna said. “I’m 20 years older than him, but he’s been a blessing to our family. It’s pretty special, not a lot of families have that many generations of basketball.” Suzy and James Hebrink have watched their children Anna, Sophia, Gretchen, Seth, Tate, and Elyse, and now Cole all play for the Packers and they now have nine grandchildren as Cole prepares for his final season at AHS. Cole sees Anna and Elyse on a regular basis as they both teach at AHS and Tate is an assistant coach on the Packer basketball team and a teacher at IJ Holton. “I have a lot of memories of sitting on the bench, and riding up with mom for her games. Now I’m always sitting next to Tate during games,” Cole said. “It’s really been a blessing being able to see all of their points of views and how they approach the game.” Cole was drawn to basketball when he watched Elyse in Tate play in state tournaments when he was a kid. “I just really wanted to be part of a winning team, and that’s why I wanted to play basketball,” Cole said. Tate isn’t afraid to claim family bragging rights for the success the Packers enjoyed while he was playing point guard, but he also appreciates the chance he gets to coach Cole. “It’s a lot of fun,” Tate said. “He’s a heck of a basketball player so he’s fun to coach, but sometimes it sucks having to be more in that coach role and I try to watch him as a brother and cheer him on sometimes, rather than yelling at him for everything.” Cole has now committed to play college basketball at Valley City University, where siblings Tate and Elyse played in the past. Elyse and Tate also played at Riverland Community College, as did Sophia, Gretchen, and Anna, who went on to play at Bemidji State. “I liked their head coach, the town was perfect and it’s a great place to play basketball and focus on studies," Tate said of his time at VCSU. Along with playing basketball, the Hebrinks have also been highly involved in coaching. Suzy was the women’s coach at Riverland for a long time, Gretchen is the head girls basketball coach at Mankato West, Tate is an assistant coach for the Austin boys basketball team, and Elyse is now assisting Anna at Riverland. Elyse is thrilled to be in town for Cole’s senior season. “It’s been a lot of fun. I definitely knew that I wanted to come back here and teach and coach,” Elyse said. “It’s even better having Cole here in the building with me. I’m excited to be able to watch him this year.“ Suzy, who played basketball at Pacelli and James, who is originally from Clara City, Minn., both played basketball at Riverland themselves and Suzy coached at Pacelli before taking over the women’s program at Riverland in 1999. “Anna, Sophia and Gretchen were coming into the gym at Pacelli as toddlers when I was coaching there, and Tate was a baby when I started at Riverland,” Suzy said. “I ended up coaching Tate, Elyse and Cole in a lot of summer games as well.” With kids at all ages who were active in sports and Suzy coaching, James held down the household to keep things going during the busy years. “James did all of the work at home and I was gone a lot at night. I also took kids on recruiting trips sometimes and had them with me at practice,” Suzy said. “We did whatever we could to make it work, because it was so busy. It just became a way of life, more than being chaos.” It’s been a long time coming, but the Hebrinks are trying not to get too sentimental about this being their last season as AHS parents. “With Anna, I kind of removed the emotional part of it because I knew I would have to go through it seven times,” Suzy said. “With Cole playing four more years, it'll be a little bit easier, but it’ll be tough without high school athletics. I’m just grateful for the things that athletics and coaching instills in people and the hard work, team work, effort and sacrifice are ingrained in the kids. Three of them have type one diabetes and I think (playing basketball) helped them learn to rally around each other when times are tough.” The Packer boys basketball team will open its season at Forest Lake Area on Nov. 29 and they will host Faribault at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 2.
