Steven and Jamie Hernandez wanted their daughter to stay active.
Just sitting around was never an option. Seven years and more than
20 different wrestling titles among dozens of other top-10 finishes
later, Jasmine Yanez wrapped up her senior year on the Gilroy High
wrestling team last month, staking claim to her second straight
prep state title.
Steven and Jamie Hernandez wanted their daughter to stay active. Just sitting around was never an option.
So in the sixth grade Jasmine Yanez went out for the South Valley Middle School wrestling team.
Seven years and more than 20 different wrestling titles among dozens of other top-10 finishes later, Yanez wrapped up her senior year on the Gilroy High wrestling team last month, staking claim to her second straight prep state title. And to top it off, college is on the horizon.
“Honestly, it’s been really crazy and insane. It’s had its ups and its downs. I never thought I would get this far,” Yanez said perched on a bar stool in her home last week, surrounded by old photos, colorful singlets and a pile of medals.
Yanez’s resume reads more like one submitted by a wrestler about to retire. It’s extensive and impressive — three time All-American, three-time USA state champ, two-time California high school state titlist and two-time Central Coast Section winner, just to name a few.
Yanez said her crowning achievement so far was a first place at the 2010 Body Bar Women’s National Championships — a world team qualifier.
“I had always placed at nationals but I had never been higher than fifth,” Yanez said. “To be up on the podium was the best feeling in the world.”
And to think, for the first year or two, the Hernandez’s weren’t 100-percent sure Yanez wanted to continue the sport.
Give it a go
“She hadn’t really done any sports before that,” Steven said. “We asked her at the beginning of every season if she wanted to keep going. It got tough sometimes; making weight, homework on top of that, up ’til midnight. I think that’s similar to a lot of athletes. But she kept doing it.
Jaime added, “If the answer was yes, she had to finish the season; finish what she started.”
Looking back, there wasn’t much doubt that Yanez would keep it up. All it took was a simple beat down of a teammate and friend to light the competitive fire.
“At first it was, ‘why am I here?'” Yanez recalled. “Two weeks in we had our first dual meet amongst ourselves, it was like a practice dual. I ended up hurting my opponent. I felt bad, but just being out there on the mat and feeling the adrenaline of actually competing it was fun. And that’s when I was like, ‘yeah, maybe I do actually like this.'”
Under the tutelage of a multitude of coaches at South Valley, including Armando Garcia, Bert Mar, Yanez held her own for the top middle school program in the county as she adjusted to the grueling schedule, which not only consisted of mat time but also school work.
Steven said she didn’t win very often in her first season, but that only fueled a work ethic that began to develop.
“It wasn’t natural ability, she worked hard, she worked the entire time,” he said. “This is a sport where you can’t make someone do it, you have to want to. It’s like going to work every day, some days you don’t want to go, but once you are there you do your best.”
After a rough go in the sixth grade, Yanez joined the Gilroy Hawks youth program, gaining much needed tournament and training experience under the watchful eye of coach Greg Varela, which proved valuable. Yanez wrestled on the “varsity” squad at South Valley her seventh and eighth grade years and immediately made the big squad at GHS.
“Throughout the years I’ve had my times where I’ve wanted to quit like any wrestler,” Yanez said. “Trying to get through the long nights of homework, and classes, then straight from school to practice and back for more homework and hardly getting any rest. It was a big burden at first. But I finally found my own groove and got through it.”
Though the number of female wrestlers has consistently multiplied over the past three years, all-girls matches were few and far between. It was just Yanez and the guys a lot of times.
“I never really worried about it,” Yanez said. “It’s just there’s my opponent, that’s who I’m going to wrestle.”
Still, the dynamic is interesting, Yanez said, some girls didn’t want to wrestle boys and vise versa. To Yanez, everyone was just a wrestler.
“She has done a good job of each match is its own regardless of whether its a male or female,” Steven said. “It doesn’t matter what sex they are. You can’t go into it mentally, ‘oh it’s a boy or oh, it’s a girl,’ you just wrestle. It doesn’t matter if they are No. 1 in the nation or a brand new wrestler, You go in there, do your best and see what happens at the end.”
But there was always a little extra in-your-face reaction if Yanez bested a boy.
“It was pure satisfaction when she would wrestle the boys,” Jamie said, leaning back slightly in her chair as if she began to think about all the matches she watched from the bleachers. “There were so many times when we’d get ready for the match and boys would be like ‘oh, I got this in the bag.’ I would tell her to take care of business. It was more exciting when she beat one of them.”
Yanez has seen the sport grow among female wrestlers and at this year’s inaugural CIF State Invitational hosted 336 female wrestlers.
“They were better than she was. There is a lot of established wrestlers out there,” Steven said. “Finally there has been a shift and there is a lot more.”
As her senior year comes to a close and a decision awaits for her next destination – narrowed down to College of San Mateo and Northern Michigan – Yanez has spent time reflecting on all the friendships she has made with Gilroy wrestlers along the way.
“We are all a little different, but we understand each other,” Yanez said. “I think it’s having to go through as much as we do, all the sacrifices and discipline. We are all a little out there and goofy.”
Yanez boasts a 4.2 grade point average and will be the first member in her family, on her mom’s side, that has scholarship opportunities.
“She has doors open that no one in my family has ever seen,” Jamie said.
