After 16 years of long bus rides, recruiting trips and lots of basketball, Suzy Hebrink is taking a step back. Hebrink recently announced that she was resigning as RCC head women’s basketball coach, but she will remain at RCC as a faculty member.

Hebrink made her choice because she wants to her son Tate, who is a freshman at AHS, play high school basketball and that makes it difficult for her to continue being a full-time coach.

“Over the years I’ve missed enough where I just don’t want to miss anything anymore,” Hebrink said. “When I was hired Tate had just been born that summer and now he’s going to be a sophomore.”

Hebrink has plenty of good memories of coaching the Blue Devils. She was able to coach three of her daughters — Anna, Gretchen and Sophia. Her four other children have spent plenty of time around the team as well, whether it be at practice or sitting behind the bench on game night.

“None of the younger kids want me to be done [at RCC], but I’ll just be done here,” Hebrink said. “I’m ready to not have so much of my life spent on this aspect, but I think [basketball] will still be a huge part of our family, I’ll still be a lot of the games here and I’ll still coach.”

Hebrink amassed a record of 172-222 overall at RCC and the team’s best run came from 2007-2013, when RCC won nearly 100 games. Hebrink considered the 2007-2008 team, which had four 1,000 point scorers, her best team. That team lost in the first round of the state tournament.

“That team had the most talent,” Hebrink said of the 2007-2008 Blue Devils. “It was one of those disappointing losses, because that was probably a national tournament team. We had local kids that were really talented.”

Hebrink has had the unique experience of coaching her children at the youth level and she’s also coached AAU teams as well. She said the time at RCC made the relationship of coaching her daughters even more intense.

“It was certainly a challenge but really rewarding and I think all of my daughters would say the same thing,” she said. “I think we can joke about some of the things that happened now. I was certainly hard on them and they were all so different.”

While Hebrink is taking a step back from coaching, her daughter Anna is taking a step forward. Anna, who played for two years at RCC and two years at Division II Bemidji State University, started coaching as an assistant at RCC with Hebrink and more recently she’s been an assistant coach for the Austin girls basketball team.

“It’s exciting,” Hebrink said of Anna coaching. “She’s always been a smart even keeled player, and I think she has a lot to offer because she’s played for so many coaches. She really has a good grasp for teaching the game and relating to her players.”