Alex Hernandez looks like a quarterback now, but the Kennedy junior didn’t always line up at that position.
He played youth football for the St. Gabriel Shamrocks and the Canaryville Lions, starting out in third grade.
“I played lineman,” Hernandez said. “I was a little one, but I was a little chunky. But then I ended up sprouting up. (By) seventh grade, sixth grade I was playing quarterback.”
He was the Crusaders’ backup last season when they went 7-3, finished second in the Public League Southwest and qualified for the IHSA playoffs.
Mason Rychetsky, the starting quarterback on that team, also is an elite baseball prospect as a pitcher and has stepped away from football. So now Hernandez is ready to be the QB1.
“It means a lot to me,” he said last month during a break in summer workouts. “I’ve been working my whole life for this. … It’s been a journey.”
Deandre Mosley, Kennedy’s first-year head coach, was the Crusaders JV coach when Herndandez was that team’s starter two years ago.
“So I definitely have experience working with Alex, getting his timing down, telling him what he needs to see.”
Mosley said Hernandez has dual-threat capability.
“Alex is smart enough to know when he needs to take off and slide and he knows when he needs to stand in there and deliver a good ball,” Mosley said.
Hernandez has some talented senior athletes to throw to, including 6-2, 200-pound Kavarion McCarter and 5-11, 160-pound Jacon Tunstill, who has a Knox offer. A newcomer to watch is junior athlete Tony Jones, who was at Kennedy as a freshman, transferred away last year and has returned.
Even outside of the Crusaders’ summer contact days, Hernandez and his receivers got together to work on their routes.
“We’ve all been getting better as a group: Kavarion, JT (Tunstill), Victor (Sandoval),” Hernandez said.
Mosley confirmed that.
“What helps is, again, him and the guys working on that timing before we even came out here (for team workouts),” Mosley said. “So had they been not doing that, I feel like I would have had to coach them up more. Without a doubt, I have to coach them.
“But since they already took the time to work on their timing and work on their routes, (they got) the ugly stuff out, I don’t see so much ugliness right now. I do see bad reps, but it’s not the ugly reps I would see had they not (taken) time to work.”