Tyler Rebowe, Nicholls State University sophomore infielder, always had two loves in his life: family and baseball.

For those students who are away from their families while attending college, corresponding with home is limited to phone calls, e-mails or a Facetime chat. However, Rebowe can easily touch base with his roots with a seven minute walk to Baker Hall, the athletics’ building. Last fall, Nicholls announced the hiring of Tim Rebowe as head football coach.

“I love having him around here,” Rebowe said, “I’m a huge family guy. Almost everyday I go and eat lunch in his office.”

Before the hiring of his father in November, Rebowe and his family lived briefly in Lafayette where Coach Rebowe was an assistant at The University of Louisiana-Lafayette. Tyler excelled at Lafayette High, earning All-District Honorable Mention his junior and senior years. Yet he was missing another important aspect of his life. He was away from his home team, his family.

“All my family is from New Orleans, and I was getting away from them living in Lafayette,” Rebowe said. “It brings us closer to them.”

That togetherness, which is just as important in team sports as it is in family, is one quality that Head Baseball Coach Seth Thibodaux expressed about Rebowe as a teammate.

“There are so many guys, especially on a championship college baseball team, and you have to have those connectors between two different personalities that keep things going in the right direction. Tyler has done a wonderful job at being the glue for us,” Thibodaux said.

The advantages for Rebowe growing up around collegiate athletes were plentiful. His father and cousin both played college baseball, and his uncle, Rusty Rebowe, played football here at Nicholls from 1974-77. Growing up around them showed Rebowe things outside the game that are required of great athletes.

“Being around it everyday, I saw what it took to succeed at the college level. I saw the dedication and sacrifice you have to put in just to be good,” Rebowe said. “With him being a coach, he would always tell me, ‘Hey if you’re going to do it, do it 100 percent, or why do it?’ and that side helped me out a lot.”
The aid hasn’t stopped since. Rebowe was red-shirted his freshman year, meaning he could not dress out for games or even sit in the dugout with his teammates. Coach Rebowe was there for his son, with fatherly advice.

“He told me, ‘Take a step back and use this as a learning experience,’ and I learned more than I could imagine by doing that,” Rebowe said.

There have been numerous accounts of father-son combinations succeeding in sports. The Mannings, Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr. and Cal Ripken Sr. and Jr. are just a few of the elite athletic bloodlines found in the American sports lexicon. Here on the bayou, Nicholls State University now has the Rebowes.