G Will Hernandez -- August 5, 2019
Q: Question about the shooting in El Paso?
A: I started to see pictures of all these articles and the news coming out. The first thing I did was I contacted all my close friends back in El Paso; everybody was fine thankfully. It’s still something horrible and I can’t imagine what some of the families living there or some of the affected, or people that knew the affected are going through right now. Even though I’m here in New York, I quickly sent out prayers, my love out to the city. That city is really important to me. I basically grew up there, I got there when I was 17 years old, left, and I was there for five or six years. It’s really, really important to me, I love all the people in El Paso. It gave me so much, it put me on the path that led me to the NFL. El Paso is very dear to my heart and I felt that even being here.
Q: Is it one of those things where you think you will keep checking in with the community, to see what is going on?
A: Yeah, I will be in constant communication with everybody there making sure everybody is alright, seeing how I can help if there is any way I can help. Right now, all I can do is give my condolences, talk to the people. I know the people of El Paso, I know the character they have, they are strong people. They are not the type to let something like that completely tear them down, they are strong people. I know they will rally, and they will get through this, they will get stronger from this.
Q: Talk about the meaning of the ties between the college (UTEP) and the community?
A: The cool thing about El Paso, the unique thing about it, it’s technically a big city, but it feels so close together. It feels like a small town almost because UTEP is the only football there. Everybody from 45 minutes away to the stadium, to people living right around the stadium, everybody comes to the game. A lot of people come to the games, a lot of people support the UTEP Miners. It gives it that small town feeling in a big city.
Q: Is that one of those things where you hear about it and you think how can that happen in my community?
A: Yeah, just anywhere, it could have happened anywhere, and I would have been like, ‘why did this happen? Why does this have to happen?’ It’s a horrible thing that nobody even thinks about. Nobody anticipates that or anything like that.
Q: Did you immediately check in with people back there when you saw the news?
A: Yeah, as soon as I saw and heard about it, I quickly messaged and called a lot of people that I know there from different areas of the city to make sure everybody is alright. I asked for other people and I made sure everyone was alright. I needed to make sure everyone was alright.
Q: You have spoken a lot about your heritage, to know that that was seemingly the root of all this, how does that make you feel?
A: This is just something, it doesn’t matter how or why they are doing this, it happened. The intentions, honestly, I couldn’t care less. The thing I do care about is all those families that were affected, all the people that were affected by this. That’s what I really care about, how much people are hurting.
