Eric Reil started coaching as a senior in high school, when he coached a group of sixth graders in a YMCA basketball league. He said he did not plan on coaching, and instead went to college for electrical engineering. However, Reil missed coaching, dropped electrical engineering and went back to school to study education to become a teacher, which is where he got the opportunity to coach under Greg McDermott at Wayne State University.

“My biggest mentor is probably coach McDermott and I’ve learned so much from him,” Reil said. “Even with his busy schedule with Creighton, he’s always on speed dial. He called me the other day and we talked. I owe a lot of stuff to him.”

Now, Reil has been coaching at Hebron for 20 years, and been the head coach of the boys basketball team for six years. Reil and the team recently beat Independence 63-41 on Dec. 5, marking Reil’s 100th win for the program as a head coach. 

“To say that you won 100 games at the same high school, there’s something special about that,” Reil said. “It’s a big accomplishment. [It’s] not for me, it’s for the program — for the kids who worked their tails off for this and [the] assistant coaches who put in all those long hours.”

The team is currently on a ten game winning streak. Point guard Cam Mennsfield said Reil’s recent achievement has the team motivated to keep up the winning streak. 

“Reil is a great coach,” Mennsfield said. “[The milestone] helps us understand that he’s been winning for a while now. It makes [the team] believe that we can keep winning with him — it  helps us want to get him that 150th win.”

Reil said this accomplishment was made possible by all the players and assistant coaches. Assistant coach Jason Crawford is part of that group who helped accomplish this milestone. 

“It’s special [because] winning is very hard,” Crawford said. “It’s something we talk about all the time and getting 100 of them is difficult, so it’s something special to be a part of. It takes a lot of hard work and commitment to win [games] again and again.”

The milestone not only marks an accomplishment for Reil, but for the program.

“Reil let me know from a young age that it doesn’t matter how old you are,” Mennsfield said. “[He taught me] that I can always lead no matter who’s on the team, who’s older than me or who has been captain for a while.” 

Reil said he is thankful for everyone who has helped him on his journey to his first major milestone and said that he couldn’t have done it without the players, assistant coaches and his mentors along the way. 

“With my coaching staff right now everything that we do, it’s because of the coaches that we have right now,” Reil said. “I can never thank those guys enough.”