Hernandez Is Making Every Second Count

Some images stay with you the rest of your life. For Steve Hernandez, one lasting image is of his son, Louie, lying on the locker-room floor minutes before he was supposed to wrestle.

Louie, who attends Calvary Chapel High, should have been preparing for the fifth-place final last November at the prestigious Iron Man tournament in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

“It was five minutes before his match, and I didn’t see Louie warming up,” Steve Hernandez said. “I went looking for him and when I went into the locker room, I found him sprawled on the floor and he looked very pale. I got really scared and asked him if he was all right. He then got up, went out on the floor and beat his man, 15-3.”

Though Hernandez was amazed his son could look so bad one moment and so good the next, he knew he had to see a doctor as soon as they returned home to Lake Forest.

Hernandez’s condition was diagnosed as pericarditis, an inflammation of the lining outside the heart that restricts blood flow from the heart to the body and causes fatigue and sometimes an irregular heartbeat. In most cases, the condition is caused by a virus.

“I’ve always been healthy,” Hernandez said, “so it was really weird that I would be wrestling in practice and then, all of a sudden, I would start feeling really weak and my heart would be beating really fast.”

At the time of his illness, Hernandez was ranked first in the county and second in the state at 145 pounds.

Doctors told him there was no medication he could take, but he had to take a break from wrestling to recuperate. After a couple of weeks’ rest, Hernandez underwent a battery of tests on his heart.

He was told he could continue wrestling, but doctors warned him the condition could return.

And it did. Immediately after returning to the mat, Hernandez suffered bouts of fatigue.

Time was running out on his prep wrestling career. Olympic League finals--the first step toward qualifying for the state tournament--were just around the corner, and Hernandez did not want to take any more breaks.

As it stands now, and under the doctor’s advice, Hernandez continues to wrestle, but he must stop and rest if he feels tired. Even if it happens during a match.

“It’s tough, especially when he loses a match you know he could have won,” Calvary Chapel Coach John Azevedo said. “But he gets real tired. Sometimes, he’s tired even before he starts to wrestle. And when he gets tired, you can see his level of wrestling drop.”

Hernandez’s ordeal was painfully obvious at the Five Counties tournament at Fountain Valley last month, when he lost to Mike Sherrick of Fresno Clovis West, 10-9. During the match, Hernandez dominated the first two periods, leading, 8-4. At the beginning of the third, Hernandez lost his energy. After the match, Azevedo could only shake his head.

“He just gets really tired, and there’s nothing he can do,” Azevedo said.

Despite Hernandez’s illness, he continues to be impressive. He won his first Southern Section Division I individual title two weeks ago and has a record of 38-3 this season. At the Masters Meet Saturday at Fountain Valley, Hernandez’s condition was particularly annoying. After qualifying for state in the quarterfinal round, he forfeited the remaining matches and finished sixth.

“I was having a pretty hard time out there,” Hernandez said after his quarterfinal match. “But all I can do [at state] is take one match at a time and hope I can place.”

Although Steve Hernandez said he still has Louie under the watchful eyes of his doctor, he has started Louie on vitamins with the hopes that it might speed his recovery.

“For the first time since he’s been sick, he seems to be feeling better and he’s looking better,” his father said. “I don’t know, I guess we’ll try anything that might help.”

Hernandez says he’s feeling all right--comparatively--though now he’s also battling the flu.

“I really want to place at state,” he said. “That’s been my dream.”