Hooping Heimdog Hoopfest Gives The Heimbigners A Rare Opportunity To Play Together In The Family Co-Ed Division
The family Heimbigner is so involved in athletics, what’s another weekend sporting activity?
At least this Saturday when they participate in Hoopfest, they’ll all be doing the same thing.
“We’ve never all played on the same team before,” said family patriarch Jon Heimbigner.
Jon, his sons Chad and Jeremy, and his daughter JoEne, make up Team Heimdog in the Hoopfest Family Co-Ed Division.
The Heimdog name comes from a nickname given Jon by his recreational basketball teammates.
The 6-foot-5 Chad, coming up from Boise where he is employed by an engineering firm, provides size.
Jeremy, 6-1 and an Eastern Washington University graduate, will be on the perimeter.
JoEne, a volleyball player for Community Colleges of Spokane, must be durable and versatile.
“I have to stay on the court the whole time because I’m the only girl,” she said. “I’ll shoot the three or post up, I guess.”
Dad offers bench strength. At least that’s what the current game plan calls for.
“I’m a sub guy primarily,” said Jon, “because Chad’s 24 and Jeremy’s 22. I’m 49 so I’ll relieve those guys.”
But you never know.
“He makes the rules,” interjected Jeremy.
Actually, “Dad can still play. He’ll set screens and hit the open shot,” Jeremy said.
None of the quartet is a stranger to Hoopfest. Jeremy has only missed one, he said, and played with his brother the first few years.
JoEne and Jon haven’t played for five years because of USA Volleyball travel commitments. Jon is a founder and business manager for the Prime Cut summer club team coached by Pam Parks of EWU and Irene Matlock of Community Colleges of Spokane.
Sports has been the Heimbigner family’s life. Jon had a 30-by-30 foot concrete basketball court put in before the yard of their new home was landscaped.
Eleven years ago they put in a swimming pool because there was little time for vacations.
Chad and Jeremy are 1991 and ‘93 graduates of North Central High School where they played basketball and tennis. Jeremy was on the school’s 1992 co-championship Greater Spokane League basketball team.
JoEne graduated from Shadle Park in 1996 where she was on state qualifying volleyball and basketball teams.
Jon has been involved in recreation softball and basketball for years and chairs the Greater Spokane Sports Association’s Hall of Fame committee.
His wife, Karen, department head of the home and family living department at NC, played coed softball and keeps score for the men’s games. It was a job she inherited after Jon’s father died.
In March, the men’s basketball team won the Washington Basketball Federation State B championship.
“Sporting events are our choice,” he said. “The kids went because they wanted to, not because they had to.”
Perhaps it had something to do with Jon and Karen’s family-oriented farm upbringing.
“For 23 years of softball and basketball my dad would drive up every week (from his farm between Odessa and Ritzville, Wash.) and keep score, getting home at 11:30 p.m.,” said Jon.
He recalled one summer when his team was playing in the Gary Bates Realty Softball Tournament in Medical Lake. His father shut down operations during harvest to be there.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Jon. “He was very adamant about that. When you were a farmer and it was time to harvest, you harvested. That meant a lot to me and we passed it on to our kids.”
Saturday at Hoopfest, he’ll be passing them a basketball.
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