TEMPE, Ariz. — When Will Hernandez returns to Las Vegas throughout the offseason to see his household, he cannot go away with out making one cease.
The Arizona Cardinals‘ guard makes positive to swing by Lety Villarreal’s home for some tacos or horchata — a standard Mexican drink made with rice, milk and cinnamon — similar to he has for the final 14 years. Typically he brings his cousins or his mother, Angelica. Typically it is simply him.
And it would not matter if Villarreal is not house. Hernandez, the son of Mexican immigrants, will wait.
It is not simply her food and drinks he is ready for — though that is a serious bonus — it is the girl who has turn into one other grandma to Hernandez. Villarreal hasn’t simply fed him. She’s been there for Hernandez when his household went by way of a few of its hardest instances.
She talked. She listened. She watched Hernandez develop, mature into a person and, now, play within the NFL.
“I’d all the time inform her about my college and soccer, how soccer was going and simply discuss to her about life,” Hernandez mentioned. “She had lots of life knowledge for me.”
Villarreal goes to be one among 60 to 80 of Hernandez’s family and friends members within the stands Sunday at Allegiant Stadium for his first sport in Las Vegas as an NFL participant when the Cardinals go to the Las Vegas Raiders (4:25 p.m. ET, CBS).
“She mentioned that she’ll really feel very excited,” Villarreal mentioned by way of her daughter, Mayra Gomez, who translated for her mom. “However she thinks that she would haven’t any phrases as a result of she’s by no means been to a sport like that, however she would in all probability really feel very, very completely satisfied.”
Hernandez met Villarreal when he was 13. His household — his mother and father and sister — had misplaced their home throughout the Nice Recession and moved right into a small constructing in Hernandez’s uncle’s yard. Villarreal lived throughout the road, promoting avenue tacos out of her storage for $1 every. She nonetheless remembers Hernandez operating over to her home after he performed exterior, hungry. He began out consuming 5, possibly six tacos. Finally, as he grew, his orders would attain the double digits.
She had all of the meats: carne asada (skirt or flank steak), tripe, pastor (spit-grilled pork), cabeza (roasted head of an animal, normally beef or pork), lengua (beef tongue), chorizo. And all of the toppings — the salsas, the diced onions, the cilantro. All selfmade.
“She had all of the sauces you need, as spicy as you need them or as delicate as you need them,” Hernandez mentioned.
As Hernandez received older, his order grew to become extra constant: six lengua and 4 tripe tacos, plus a quesadilla. Now, at 335 kilos and in his fifth NFL season, Hernandez identified that he would not eat as a lot as he as soon as did — however he confidently slipped in that he’d nonetheless put down 10 tacos simply.
Villarreal — who calls Hernandez “Willy” like he calls her “Lety,” which is brief for Leticia — is all however part of the Hernandez household at this level, he mentioned. That comes with its perks. If Villareal is out of her horchata when Hernandez is on the town, she’ll make a batch particularly for him.
“We all the time give her stuff about that,” Gomez mentioned. “We’ll be like, ‘Oh yeah, simply because it is Willy, he is additional particular?'”
Now she’s 57 and has been promoting tacos out of her storage on the weekend for the final 18 years. They’re as much as between $2 and $2.50 every, however she nonetheless has folks come from throughout Las Vegas to eat them, who stroll up her driveway and luxuriate in them at tables she arrange inside her storage.
Her and Hernandez have talked casually about Villarreal opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant in some unspecified time in the future, throwing round concepts, however she’s content material.
“She likes to do her factor,” Hernandez mentioned. “She’s slightly hard-headed generally, however she’s gonna do what she needs to do, and no one might inform her any totally different.
“So, all I do know is I’ll be a loyal buyer for all times.”
Partially due to how loyal she’s been to him.
At first, Hernandez’s mother and father gave him cash to purchase Villareal’s tacos. 5 {dollars} right here, six {dollars} there. It added up. When his mom and father felt monetary pressure, they needed to reduce.
Villarreal did not let that cease Hernandez from consuming. It was her manner of protecting some semblance of normalcy of their lives. Dwelling behind his uncle’s home, Hernandez’s household needed to maintain all their garments on one rack in the lounge. The constructing wasn’t huge, with the roof standing nearly 5-foot-6 excessive, Hernandez remembered.
Hernandez, barely a youngster, noticed a life he by no means knew earlier than.
“It did open my eyes to lots of issues that I did not know earlier than,” he mentioned. “A variety of issues that I’ve taken as a right. Like, one thing so simple as like having your personal room, having your personal closet.
“It actually was, like, a part of my mentality rising up and what helped me get to the place I’m.”
The stresses of shedding a home, transferring right into a relative’s yard and never having their very own private area could not be ignored. They lived like that for about two years.
“However we received alongside truly fairly nice, now that I believe again,” Hernandez mentioned. “And it did present us, too, that, like as soon as we received previous that stage, that something that life might ever throw at us, can be nice. We would be able to deal with it.”
Hernandez did not let his household’s monetary state of affairs maintain him from his tacos. He finally ran his tab to $700, and he did not have the cash to pay her again on the time. He went throughout the road and requested if he might pay her again later. She advised him to maintain consuming what he wished and so they’d determine it out later.
Hernandez was drafted by the New York Giants within the second spherical of the 2018 NFL draft. Armed with a $3.5 million signing bonus, Hernandez might repay her, which he did, two-fold. He gave Villareal $1,400 in money at some point, as a lot to pay her again as to say thanks.
“Such as you had nothing, begging for tacos, just about to the purpose now the place you possibly can pay her for 1000’s of {dollars} price of tacos,” he mentioned. “Though once I was poor as hell and once I had some huge cash to provide to her, she handled me the precisely the identical …
“To her, it wasn’t in regards to the cash. It was about her genuine self and an genuine relationship.”
When Hernandez returns Saturday to Las Vegas, it will be the primary time his prolonged household watches him play in particular person, and there might be lots of them. Every of his mother and father has 5 siblings, who all have their very own households, so the Hernandez part will run deep with uncles, aunts and cousins.
They will have their eyes on him, however Hernandez is aware of there might be extra.
“I additionally get to return,” he mentioned, “and have all the highschool children that grew up watching me and which might be watching me now and present them that like, ‘That is actual. It might occur.'”
Sunday might be his probability to indicate that he turned his childhood into one thing.
“She feels that it is like a Mexican dream a couple of child that fought for his dream,” Villarreal mentioned. “She simply feels very pleased with him that he continued to battle for his dream and he is making it.”
