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St. Viator's Hernandez proved just how versatile he can be

Clearly, he can walk the walk.

But St. Viator star basketball player Jeremiah Hernandez also thinks he can talk the talk.

As in talk about basketball, to basketball fans. On TV.

It's long been his dream.

"I've grown up watching a lot of basketball on TV with my dad," said Hernandez, a 6-foot-4 senior guard. "We would sit there talking about the game and then the announcer would say something that I had just said and I would always be like, 'I could do that. I could be an announcer.'"

Hernandez, the Daily Herald's Northwest suburbs' Boys Basketball All-Area Team Captain, will be continuing his playing career next year at Kent State, where he will be on full scholarship and majoring in broadcast journalism.

While he works on his game on the court, he will working off the court to emulate the style of his favorite basketball announcers Jeff Van Gundy and Jay Bilas of ESPN.

"I love listening to them talk about every play, when someone takes a bad shot when there's another shot open, or if someone misses a cut. These are all things I have seen during games and I'll point it out to my dad, usually before the announcers even say it," Hernandez said. "That's pretty cool. But I think just watching those games, and listing to the announcers talk has really helped me, too. I think it's made me a better player."

Hernandez, a three-year varsity starter who averaged 19 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists per game this season in leading St. Viator to the Class 3A Grayslake Central sectional championship game, got so good that he won back-to-back player of the year honors in the rugged East Suburban Catholic Conference as a junior and senior.

He is a McDonald's all-American nominee and has been named to Wheeling's prestigious Hardwood Classic holiday all-tournament team twice.

Recruiting got hot and heavy this year for Hernandez, who had 12 Division I offers from schools such as Cal Poly, Southern Illinois, and Wisconsin-Milwaukee before narrowing his list down to finalists Kent State and Drake.

"The thing about Jerry is that he has an intelligence, a basketball IQ, that is really unmatched ... by really anybody in high school," St. Viator coach Quin Hayes said. "He is so far above intelligence-wise when it comes to basketball.

"But then you add in his skill level and his talent and you have a heck of a Division I basketball player. He's a fantastic passer. He can guard, he can shoot, he can post up. You don't find a player who can do that many things at the high school level. You find it as you get older, but for him to be so good at so many things at this level is a credit to his work ethic and his drive to become the best player he can be."

Hernandez has been working to do that from a very young age. Like many serious high school hoopsters, Hernandez was once an avid Nerf hooper as a young grade schooler.

"We have this room in the basement where we have this TV on one wall and this big open space over on the other side," Hernandez said. "When I was five or six years old, I would go down to the basement all the time and I would turn on basketball games on the TV and watch the game and then during timeouts, I would go over to my Nerf hoop and try to imitate what I saw on TV. When the game came back on, I'd go back over and watch. I'd be down there in the basement for game after game, multiple games in a row."

Eventually, when he was in about eighth grade on playing on a real hoop, Hernandez started to beat his dad Don in games of one-on-one. Don Hernandez played basketball at Palatine High School before playing at the collegiate level at Southern University in Louisiana.

"I really wasn't a very good player until about eighth grade," Hernandez said. "I was kind of under the radar. But I just kept playing and working and I got better.

"I think the thing that the college coaches really liked about me is my versatility. I can be a point or a wing, I can guard 4s and 5s (big players). I can do a little bit of everything."

Indeed, Hernandez is versatile. He can walk the walk, while also (quite literally) talking the talk.

pbabcock@dailyherald.com

Follow Patricia on Twitter: @babcockmcgraw

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