Coach's Corner: "Family Over Everything: Full-Circle Fire and the Playmakers Way"

TOBY HEGNER

@THeggs_32

He was eight years old, the little brother chasing big-brother dreams, when basketball first hooked him. By thirteen, Toby Hegner found a home with the Wisconsin Playmakers, a place that didn’t just develop skill;, but planted belief. Those years turned possibility into a plan and a plan into reality. Toby played five seasons at Creighton under Greg McDermott, where the game slowed down and the lens widened. Redshirting, scouting reports, spacing, leadership, the player’s heartbeat merged with a coach’s eyes. Then came the ankle and two surgeries, a surgeon’s sober warning, and a crossroads no 23-year-old wants. Keep chasing the ball or protect the life he hoped to build. He chose the future, hung up the shoes, and walked into a quiet he didn’t expect to be so loud.

Grief gave way to clarity. Basketball hadn’t abandoned him; it had formed him, resilience, responsibility, love for the whole not just the highlight. And then the door opened the way doors do when you stay ready, Jay Jesperson, the Playmakers director from Toby’s playing days, asked him to take over a team for his son, Cooper, the same kid who used to buzz around their bench years ago. Full circle. He said yes. The dry-erase board replaced the depth chart, and the joy came roaring back. Coaching wasn’t a substitute; it was a calling. He wasn’t just drawing actions; he was building a brotherhood. Ten 18-year-olds who knew he’d answer every text, show up for every hard thing, and tell the truth even when it stung. Ask the ones who lived it, Gavin Gores, Chris Pohl, AJ Bender, Cooper Jesperson, Calvin Johnson, Grant Hardy, Bryce Ott, Brooks Hinson, they’ll tell you what “coach” really meant.

“Family Over Everything” isn’t a slogan for Toby; it’s the operating system. If it’s not your night, lift your brother. Point to the passer. Celebrate the screen. Clean the bench before and after games. Win the details and you’ll win the day. He pushes his kids, competes with them, challenges them, holds the standard, because he believes their ceilings are higher than they can see. And because someone once did that for him. That’s why it had to be the Playmakers. They opened a door when others didn’t; giving back isn’t charity, it’s stewardship.

The man away from the whistle makes the coach with it. Toby is a husband to Peyton and a dad to two little lights, TJ at two-and-a-half and baby Emerson June, so the schedule now runs on strollers, naps, and giggles. Walks around the neighborhood, parks, the zoo, the farmers market, ordinary moments that reset the compass. He’s also a business owner, shoulder-to-shoulder with his brothers at Oshkosh Tent & Awning, building something they’re proud to put the family name on. Spring means he’s an “okay” golfer by his own admission. Fall pulls him into marshes and fields to hunt with friends. The balance isn’t an escape from basketball, but it’s what keeps the work human.

His message to players is to seek God and stay grateful. You will hit walls, everybody does. When you do, you can turn back , or you can climb. Wall after wall, challenge after challenge, you become the kind of person the moment can trust. Perseverance matters. So do faithfulness and trust in God. Those three, he tells them, won’t just carry your game; they’ll carry your life. That’s why he coaches defense on bad shooting nights and effort on good ones, because identity can’t ride the stat sheet.

Toby’s own mission is still unfolding, and he’s honest about that. Marriage and fatherhood keep teaching him new lessons. Coaching keeps handing him new purpose. He’s navigating with open hands and an open heart, trusting that clarity arrives in the faces he serves, his players, his colleagues, his family. What never wavers is the why, to help someone else fall in love with this game the way he did, and to be the steady voice that says, “You can,” when the noise says, “You can’t.”

The Playmakers gave him a chance; now he gives chances away like oxygen, belief, structure, brotherhood. Not every kid will play DI. That isn’t the point. The point is leaving with more than you came with. A tighter handle, a stronger core, a clearer conscience, a wider view of what it means to be a teammate and a man. Family over everything isn’t just how they win; it’s what they take with them when the jersey goes back on the rack.