The convenience store Mars WR Gabe Hein drew on his pads is reminder to defenses ‘he’s always open’
ADAMS TWP — A Sheetz and GetGo sit across from one another beside the Mars Athletic Complex, where Eric Kasperowicz’s Planets play their home football games. The nearest 7-Eleven is further east along Route 228.
So why does Gabe Hein advertise the latter convenience store on his back plate?
“Like we saw today, he’s always open,” Mars quarterback Colin Yurisinec said last Friday night after the Planets’ senior standout receiver tallied four touchdown grabs in a 42-7 season-opening win at Beaver.
Two of Hein’s scores were via jailbreak screens, one from midfield and another from 21 yards out. The Sacred Heart commit snared another Yurisinec pass on a fourth-and-7 out route from the Bobcats’ 21-yard line, shook off a defender and bowled into two more downfield to topple in for a touchdown.
Hein finished with an impressive 142 yards on six grabs. It was part of Planets offensive coordinator Andrew Rossi’s thought process to build up Yurisinec, a first-time varsity starter, by getting the ball out of his hand and to Hein quickly. Kasperowicz described Hein as Yurisinec’s “binky.” In other words, a dependable security outlet.
“I’ve known him my whole entire life,” Hein said of Yurisinec, who’s been his neighbor since they were 4 years old. “I knew we were gonna be good. We have that connection. When we were little, we’d go out in the backyard and play football and he’d throw to me.
“I told him before the game, I was like, ‘If anything happens, just throw me the ball and you’ll be good.’”
Hein said he began drawing on his padding after his friend, Alex Kinch, died unexpectedly last season. He wanted to carry on the tradition this year and wound up grabbing green, red and orange Sharpie markers.
“I was just sitting there on my back patio, and I was just thinking,” said Hein, who grabs a Minute Maid lemonade, white cheddar Cheez-Its and a Snickers bar when he stops at a gas station. “I put my tape on, and I was like, ‘What am I gonna do? I need to find something good. It’s my senior year.’ ... It stays on the whole season.”
Mars senior linebacker Zach Dentel, once a youth quarterback of Hein’s, poked fun at the logo-adorned back plate as “cringy.”
“I don’t care what Zach thinks,” Hein said, jabbing back at his teammate. “I pulled up a picture and I looked at it and I just did it. It’s not hard to draw.”
Kasperowicz got a kick out of Hein’s arts and crafts skills.
“I saw that midweek at some point,” Kasperowicz said. “I’m a little older, so it took me maybe three or four seconds to realize it. I’m like, ‘Ah, that’s a little ingenious.’”
Proclaiming the same pass-catching availability as Hein, Cincinnati Bengals wideout Ja’Marr Chase, one of the NFL’s top receivers, partnered with 7-Eleven in 2023, wearing apparel and a chain branded by the franchise. Hein said he models his game after Chase’s former LSU teammate and current Minnesota Vikings star Justin Jefferson.
To get the running clock going against Beaver with 8:30 left in the third frame, Hein ran a fade route and pinned Yurisinec’s throw to his chest with one hand while on the way to the ground. The defender covering him began pulling him down in the end zone before the pass arrived.
There’s no better feeling, Hein said, than making a play like that.
“That guy had half his body hanging on him,” Rossi said. “He still caught the ball. ... Just when you think you’ve seen him do everything he could do, he does something else that totally blows you away.”
“There’s nobody in the WPIAL that wouldn’t take that kid on their team,” Bobcats coach Cort Rowse said succinctly.
After a breakout performance on the road against Boone (Fla.) in last season’s opener, Hein noticed a pair defenders were assigned to him at all times in a 49-13 loss against Bethel Park.
“(Didn’t) matter the score — fourth quarter, a minute left — they still had two people on me,” Hein said. “Now we play them again and they just (saw) that. They know what’s coming.”
