Family Ties : L.A. Baptist’s Twins Try to Give Hernandezes Another Section Title

Matt Hernandez, a Z-back at L.A. Baptist High, has it encoded into his Y chromosome. In light of his family, it just has to be genetic.

In fact, it seems his whole family has lettered in football, from A (uncle Al, the oldest) to Z (twin brother Zack, the youngest).

“The stories go back pretty far,” Matt said. “We’ve heard bits and pieces about everybody.”

Pieces of eight, in fact. The Hernandez Bros. of L.A. Baptist were preceded by the Hernandez herd of four at San Fernando High, who were followed by the two Guerra guys at Monroe and Bell-Jeff.

All in all, Matt and Zack never had a chance.

“You know, we have a cousin who doesn’t like football,” said Zack, a quarterback. “And he’s been totally rebuked.”

This is no family tree, it’s an orchard, and it started back when the San Fernando Valley was filled with all sorts of groves.

Since then, of course, the Valley has been divvied up, subdivided into various titles and deeds. Titles and deeds on the field of play, strangely enough, are exactly what the extended Hernandez family is all about when it comes to football.

Uncle Al Hernandez played at San Fernando in the early 1960s and was followed by three brothers, including the twins’ father, Bob, and Uncle Tom, who later led San Fernando to more victories than any coach in the school’s history.

Bob and Tom, in fact, played on teams that won City Section titles in 1967 and 1974, respectively. Seniors Matt and Zack will attempt to win a Southern Section Division X title tonight at 7:30 when top-seeded L.A. Baptist (12-0) faces Brethren Christian (11-2) at Birmingham High.

Matt and Zack started hearing football war stories long before their pacifiers were replaced by mouthpieces. Gather ‘round the campfire boys, have we got a yarn for you. Some of those old San Fernando tales were actually believable. Others, well. . . .

“Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays and Easter,” Matt said. “It’s always football talk.”

Enough to leave the twins in a holidaze. Some of the anecdotes seemed particularly far-fetched.

Bob, the twins’ father, has spun a couple of doozies. Bob claims that when he played for San Fernando, Hell Week was torturous beyond belief. Coaches wouldn’t even let players take water breaks, though the summer sun was merciless.

“He said the players would huddle around and one by one they’d get down on the ground and suck the water right out of the sprinkler head,” Zack said. “Gross.”

Dad’s net gross wasn’t much, either. Bob told his sons that he started at linebacker for the City championship team of 1967, even though he “weighed 146 pounds, soaking wet.”

Soaking wet, huh? Then where did he get the water? The twins were again dubious.

Dad’s biggest stretch was when he boasted that San Fernando assistant Howard Marcus once broke a clipboard over Bob’s head.

Another canard, they thought. Finally, San Fernando honored Bob’s championship team and the twins accompanied their father to the awards banquet.

“The boys got to meet everybody I’d been telling them about,” Bob said.

Said Zack: “It was all true.”

It wasn’t exactly the first time the boys had been to San Fernando. Shoot, the twins practically grew up there.

Uncle Tommy, who won a record 73 games in his 11 years as coach of the Tigers before resigning after the 1992 season, gave the pair free reign. Of course, as kids will do, they exploited their familial ties to the hilt.

“We used to always go into the locker room before the games,” Zack said. “We felt important because we were his nephews.”

Nephews he could not refuse. Afterward, the twins tried to swipe everything that wasn’t nailed down, particularly the game towels--inscribed with various messages of mayhem--worn by their heroes.

“The players looked big back then,” Matt said. “ Reeeeal big. We could name every starter on the team.”

Tiger ties or not, Bob enrolled the pair at L.A. Baptist because he thought the boys would get a better education and develop faster socially at a small school. It also ensured that the duo would shine athletically.

Zack, the starting quarterback, has blossomed in the team’s run-and-shoot offense, installed this season. He has passed for 3,423 yards, second in the state to All-American Keith Smith (3,988) of Newbury Park. Matt switched from running back to Z-back receiver and has pulled down 47 passes for 759 yards and five touchdowns.

It was Matt, though, who first turned the family on its generational ear. As a running back his sophomore year, he broke free and scored on a long run.

“All the uncles called,” Zack said. “They all asked him, ‘Do you realize what you did? You’re the first Hernandez to score a touchdown!

“I don’t think any of them ever touched the ball.”

Alas, he speaks the truth. All four of the elder Hernandezes were guards and linebackers. The ball could have been made out of chiffon, for all they knew. “I think it was the first time a Hernandez either caught, carried or scored with the ball,” Bob said.

Which, of course, begs the question: From linebacker genes came game-breaker teens? Maybe not.

“The skill-position stuff is from the other side of the family,” Tom said.

Matt and Zack’s mother, Diane, has two brothers who were standout receivers in the 1970s. Dick Guerra played with future NFL quarterback Guy Benjamin at Monroe and Uncle Larry was an All-Southern Section selection at Bell-Jeff.

Imagine the family get-togethers. Boys’ night in means girls’ night out.

“Being there when all these guys get going, I just walk out of the room when I’ve had enough,” said Diane, a former San Fernando cheerleader. “I’ll go shopping, anywhere. I have compiled a great list of girlfriends.”

For the twins, family membership has its privileges. Uncle Al, who played at Fresno State and might be the best player in the bunch, comes over to help the pair break down game film.

Uncle Tom, now that he isn’t coaching, has started attending games. (Little-known family fact: Tom, the only All-City selection among the elder Hernandez brothers, was once cut from a Pop Warner team.)

The twins’ exposure to San Fernando football came in handy for their first three years at L.A. Baptist. In fact, a few weeks before the twins enrolled as freshmen, they cornered Tom at a family barbecue and grilled him on the rudiments of the wishbone offense.

San Fernando had run the wishbone for years, dating to before Tom blocked for guys named Charles White and Kenney Moore. L.A. Baptist ran the wishbone for Matt and Zack’s first three seasons.

And so, in the front yard of Matt and Zack’s grandparents’ house, the threesome boned up on the wishbone.

“They ran the true ‘bone,” Tom said. “We shared what we did, what they did, stuff like when to pitch the ball.”

Hernandezes pitching in to help one another is nothing new. Bob and Frank work together as commercial artists. Tom, who still teaches at San Fernando, and Al, a mortgage broker, teamed to run a sports memorabilia business. Bob and Frank recently completed a rendering of Oscar De La Hoya that Tom and Al plan to market.

There’s been sisterly love too: Al and Tom married sisters. So maybe it was destiny, in light of their close-knit kin, that Matt and Zack were twins.

Fraternal twins, to be precise, which means they aren’t identical physically. Or, in their case, in personality.

Zack is an extrovert, while Matt is decidedly more reserved, like Uncle Tom. Then again, when Tom was upset with his team, he was known to kick a few chairs around the San Fernando coaches’ office.

“Matt is definitely more sedate, like Tommy,” Bob said. “But when he gets mad, he goes after Zack and chases him all over the house. It is not pretty.”

Pretty scary, though, are the twins’ similarities in other areas.

“Their grades, their scores on the (Scholastic Aptitude Test), even their placement in their class is almost matching,” Bob said. “Sometimes their test scores line up almost identically. It’s very weird, and it’s happened more times that I can mention.”

Make no mistake, the twins do their best to separate themselves in other arenas. There was the time when the pair played one-on-one basketball for five consecutive hours because neither would let the other quit while ahead.

Over the summer, Zack started jumping rope to improve his conditioning and footwork. Matt took note and was determined to hang with him. “I think I’m better at it now,” Matt said with a laugh. “That’s what people say.”

Whether Zack would agree is another matter. Indisputable, though, is the fact that as a team, the twins and their teammates have been better than the competition all season. L.A. Baptist is ranked second in state Division IV by Cal-Hi Sports.

The twins are hoping the stands are packed tonight for their swan song. But then, since most of their relatives will be attending, it should be standing-room only. Every Tom, Dick and Larry--plus the rest of the uncles, assorted grandparents and cousins--hope to be there for Matt and Zack’s biggest moment.

Afterward, imagine the stories they’ll have to tell.

Southern Section Division X Championship

Matchup: L.A. Baptist vs. Brethren Christian

Kickoff: 7:30 tonight at Birmingham High

TV/Radio: None

Outlook: This is the third appearance in a section championship game for both teams. Brethren Christian, which finished second in 1978 and 1982 in the Inland Conference, has 16 starters back from last year’s team, which lost to Big Bear in the semifinals. L.A. Baptist, which also has 16 starters back, finished second in the Small Schools division in 1970, but won the Small Schools title a year later. The similarities between the teams end there. Brethren Christian is a running team that works mainly from a pro set. L.A. Baptist employs the run-and-shoot. Warrior quarterback Reggie Davis (6-foot-4, 195 pounds), who is taking recruiting trips to Washington, Oklahoma, Arizona State and Wisconsin, also starts at strong safety. L.A. Baptist quarterback Zack Hernandez will need to avoid Davis in the secondary. Davis has intercepted five passes and returned three for touchdowns. Defense is the Warriors’ strong suit. Brethren has a plus-17 in turnover ratio. The Warriors have intercepted 19 passes and recovered 18 fumbles. Brethren Coach Ken Sharrar is hoping the Warrior defense lives up to its billing. “The big key for us will be doing things that put them in situations they haven’t been in before,” Sharrar said. Defensively, the Warriors will be hard pressed to key on any one player. The Knights average 4.6 yards per carry and have scored 34 touchdowns on the ground.

Seasons at a Glance L.A. Baptist (12-0):

47: Rosamond: 26

27: S.Ana Calvary Chapel: 3

16: Oak Park: 15

34: Fillmore: 7

43: St. Bonaventure: 18

49: Maranatha: 0

28: Marshall Fundamental: 6

38: Paraclete: 14

31: Village Christian: 18

Playoffs

34: Silver Valley: 20

28: St. Genevieve: 20

45: Ontario Christian: 0

Brethren Christian (11-2):

0: Bellflower: 12

7: Fillmore: 6

34: Maranatha: 6

41: Whittier La Serna: 6

20: El Cajon Christian: 7

34: Whittier Christian: 14

21: Ontario Christian: 14

21: Orange Lutheran: 3

13: S.Ana Calvary Chapel: 30

13: Cerritos Vly Christian: 10

Playoffs

34: Rosamond: 6

27: Cathedral City: 13

28: Yucca Valley: 21

Comparing the Numbers

L.A. Baptist

Rushing Att Yds TD J. Symington 90 600 3 D. Berg 53 263 10 Z. Hernandez 97 150 7

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Passing PA PC Yds TD Z. Hernandez 348 209 3,423 23

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Receiving No. Yds TD J. Romero 80 1,468 11 D. Berg 67 1,080 7 M. Hernandez 47 759 5

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Team Totals Avg Offense 397 Defense 228

Brethren Christian

Rushing Att Yds TD K. Washington 191 1,213 15 M. Stump 159 1,069 5 R. Davis 135 499 6

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Passing PA PC Yds TD R. Davis 127 60 876 7

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Receiving No. Yds TD A. Brown 20 498 5 D. Dobler 10 86 0

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Team Totals Avg Offense 283 Defense 188