Hep's final walk

For IU football coach Terry Hoeppner, the time to shine was on Saturdays.\nSo when planning his Celebration of Life, there was only one day his wife Jane said it should happen. It needed to be a Saturday.\n“It’s game day,” Jane Hoeppner told friends, family and IU fans who had come to Assembly Hall Saturday to remember her husband, who died Tuesday due to complications from a brain tumor.\nAfter the ceremony, the celebration was taken to the west side of Assembly Hall where the funeral precession passed through the team, which was lined up with each player raising a helmet, while the Marching Hundred played the IU fight song. \n“When I think of Coach Hep, I think of tremendous courage,” said former IU running back Anthony Thompson, who had served as Hoeppner’s pastor for the last 18 months. “As far as I know, he never complained about his illness or about his sickness.”\nThompson went on to say that he still sees Hoeppner even after death.\n“Yes he’s still doing the walk,” Thompson said. “He’s walking in heaven, where the streets are paved with gold. Yes there is still the rock, that rock is Jesus Christ. ... That rock can never be moved.”\nThompson then put a red IU hat on his head and pointed to the players who were seated together.\n“And my final comments I will say that Hep still wants you to follow him as he followed Christ,” he said. “And I can say to the team that Hep still wants 13 (games).”\nPlay 13 – a motto of Hoeppner’s, referring to IU playing in a bowl game – was a prevailing message throughout the ceremony.\n“This is a beginning for you today,” Jane Hoeppner told the team. “Don’t you dare let it become anything except the start of something huge for you. You have put so much into this and this season is going to be so awesome. You are going to play 13, we are going to be in a bowl game. And Coach Hep is going to be there with us.”\nOutgoing IU president Adam Herbert said while Hoeppner is gone, the impact he left on the University will still be felt.\n“His impact can be felt each time our team takes the walk, each time we look at the rock and each time we tap into the never quit attitude he lived by and inspired others to follow,” Herbert said. “Hep truly does leave a legacy, not only set in a three-ton chunk of limestone, but one that is also inscribed in our hearts.”\nHoeppner not only left a legacy, but he did it the right way said Brad Bates, the director of athletics at Miami University in Ohio, where Hoeppner coached before coming to IU. Bates’ words in the ceremony came in the form of a spoken letter to Northwestern coach Randy Walker and former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler, both former Miami coaches who have died in the last year.\n“He was clearly not motivated by money or ego, but by a noble and honorable passion,” Bates said. “Sure Terry used his coaching methodology to develop better athletes to win games … But what distinguishes Terry is that he would never let any of us be satisfied in only one aspect of our life. He demanded that we excel in all of our endeavors.”\nThe ceremony included two videos, one family video comprised of pictures of Hoeppner with his family and one football video with highlights from Hoeppner’s career.\nJunior wide receiver James Hardy called Hoeppner a father figure and made one promise about the future.\n“We will dedicate this season and each and every season on to Coach Hep and his family,” Hardy said. “Thank you for being so strong for us.”