Hernandez’s house of ’Paign
Long locks, no sleeves and on a mission to get the Illini primed for football season
Lou Hernandez keeps 30 years of notebooks filled with workouts and calendars.
Like most strength and conditioning coaches, his dedication to details was developed through the decades to apply with precision at Illinois.
“Everything we do is on a routine,” Hernandez said. “We know what we’re doing every Monday of June. We know what we’re doing every Tuesday of June. That’s the discipline we live.”
He had to abandon his habits and adapt through chaos the last several months as the Big Ten changed courses a few times amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Sending players workouts at home when school and athletic facilities shut down in the spring, easing them back into June voluntary workouts, planning for a postponed spring season in August and now gearing up for a reboot that is expected to kick off Oct. 24 at Wisconsin.
In March, he helped remotely guide athletes through often creative home workouts and oversaw their nutritional intake. When players returned for voluntary workouts in June, Hernandez sanitized equipment, exhaustively reminding players to wear masks, organizing lifts and runs to coordinate enough space between players and setting a tone of COVID-19 protocol compliance.
More ups and downs than a player trying to max out on his bench press.
“This has been extremely challenging,” Hernandez said. “(Some)times it felt like we have the pedal all the way down and the engine going but the car in neutral. Seems like we can’t get the car out of first gear, a lot of start and stop and on and off. That’s made it really hard to be consistent.”
Strength coaches understand more than barbells and biceps. And now their duties are as important as ever as they attempt to accomplish conflicting chores: ease players back into game mode but also optimize their bodies in a short time span.
Illinois is trying to build off a 6-7 season and its first bowl appearance since 2014.
“I lean on him an awful lot,” Illini coach Lovie Smith said. “His position is as important as any of our positions around here. He has his thumb on the team as much as anyone. That’s why we feel good about going into the season too.”
Hernandez’s ultimate goal, he said, is to “keep this team as healthy as they can be from this virus.”
Players forced to quarantine from positive COVID-19 tests or from contact tracing also interrupts training, so when they return Hernandez wants to make sure they don’t rush themselves to make up for lost time.
Hernandez is known around the Smith Center for his upbeat attitude, booming laugh, shoulder-length locks — a tribute to former Illini All-American linebacker Jeremy “J” Leman — and his sleeveless T-shirts. When his daughters see him wearing sleeves, they wonder what important occasion is occurring.
“You can’t put $10 sleeves on milliondollar arms,” he joked, noting he leaves scissors about his home to free his muscles from constricting shirts.
Smith jokingly asked, “Lou wears sleeves?” Hernandez delved into powerlifting while growing up in a small Texas town.
Many of his friends played baseball, but he remembers watching football games with his dad and seeing Tom Flores, the first Latino quarterback and first Latino coach to win a Super Bowl.
Hernandez is the only Hispanic Big Ten head strength coach and one of a few throughout the sport. He takes pride in being on an especially diverse Illini coaching staff and encourages young people interested to pursue athletic careers.
“I am so honored to represent the Hispanic community,” he said. “When you’ve got people like Ron Rivera and his success, Anthony Munoz, Tony Gonzalez, Roberto Garza. And I hope one day people say Lou Hernandez is one of the best strength coaches. That is my goal, to someday be mentioned as one of the best Hispanics to come into the football world.”
Hernandez, who holds a bachelor’s degree in exercise science and a master’s degree in health-related fitness from Houston, is in his second stint with Illinois. He worked under Ron Zook from 2005-11 after earlier jobs with the New York Jets and at Florida.
He spent 2012-18 at North Carolina before joining Smith’s staff in Champaign in 2019. He told his wife and two daughters they were “coming home.”
Hernandez often reminds players about their responsibility in helping Illinois enjoy an uninterrupted season if they abide by safety guidelines.
“Coach Lou is that energetic strength coach we need,” defensive lineman Jamal Woods said. “We still have to practice our social distancing, and he does his part, but workouts are still hard and he’s still getting us right. (The staff ) preach(es) to us every day to stay inside as much as we can, try to stay away from restaurants and other students — just to make sure the virus doesn’t spread.”
Hernandez said this is a year unlike any other in preparing for the season. Most of his journals for each season add up to about 50 pages. He said this season’s notes would be about 200 pages.
And he hopes never to revisit it.
“I am hoping to use that as a fire starter,” he said, laughing.