Football
- Title:
- Wide Receivers Coach
- Email:
- jmhecklinski@bsu.edu
- Phone:
- 765.285.3718
Coaching Experience:
11th Year as a football coach
Benedictine, assistant, 1998
Fort Scott Community College, assistant, 1999-2000
Central Missouri State, 2001-02
Arizona, assistant, 2003
Ball State, assistant, 2004-present
? 2004-07 - Wide Receivers
? 2008 - Recruiting Coordinator/Wide Receivers
NOTES: Promoted to Recruiting Coordinator after the 2007 season plus will continue coaching the wide receivers . . . Coached junior Dante Love, who ranked second in the country in all-purpose yards per game (206.92) plus was sixth in the nation in receiving yards per game (107.54) and seventh in the country in catches per game (7.69) . . . Love was a 2007 All-Mid-American Conference First-Team choice after earning second-team honors in 2006 . . . Tutored one of the most prolific football players in Ball State history in 2004 in wide receiver Dante Ridgeway . . . Ridgeway was one of three finalists in the country for the Fred Biletnikoff Award, which goes to the nation’s most outstanding wide receiver . . . Ridgeway, who set nearly every Ball State receiving record, was also an AP All-American Second-Team choice and a Walter Camp Football Foundation All-America Second-Team selection . . . Ridgeway was an All-MAC First-Team honoree and led the nation in receptions per game and receiving yards per game in 2004 . . . Hecklinski served as the offensive coordinator plus coached the quarterbacks at Central Missouri State and helped the team to the school’s first-ever playoff appearance in 2002 and the school’s first-ever bowl victory in 2001 . . . Hired by Brady Hoke on his original staff in January of 2003, but left prior to the 2003 season to become the quarterbacks coach/pass game coordinator at Arizona under the guidance of offensive coordinator Mike Deal.
Personal Information:
Family: Married to the former Tiffany Deal . . . one daughter, Riley, and two sons, Michael and J.R.
High School: Palatine H.S. (Class of ?93) in Palatine, Ill.
College: Bachelor’s - Western Illinois ?97
NOTES: Began his collegiate career at Illinois . . . Transferred to Western Illinois where he was team captain as a senior and earned all-conference honors as a sophomore, junior and senior . . . Passed for 5,980 career yards at WIU to rank second on the Leathernecks’ career charts . . . Helped Western Illinois to the NCAA Division IAA Playoffs in 1996 and 1997 . . . Played for the Albany Firebirds of the Arena Football League in 1998 . . . His wife, Tiffany, is the daughter of Mike Deal, who was on the coaching staff at Illinois when Hecklinski was a redshirt freshman, and is currently a pro personnel scout with the Denver Broncos.
