Demetrio Hernandez, Head Soccer Coach

Demetrio Hernandez has coached soccer for 27 years, and has now joined the Wiley College family effective August 2011. Coach Hernandez started running summer soccer camps in 1980 for the City of Tyler for the Recreational Department and surrounding areas of East Texas. He expanded his knowledge of the game as a soccer referee, officiating on the junior college and recreational levels. He has served as the Coach and Director for the Academy of Soccer Programs and the Individual Skills Coach for the East Texas Spirit Soccer Club.

Prior to Wiley College, from 1988 through 2002, he served as the Boys & Girls Soccer Coach and Kicking Coach for the soccer program at John Tyler High School. His most memorable accomplishment is that he started the boys' program with only 13 players; and at the end of his successful tenure in 2001, he left behind 120 boys and 80 girls. Coach Hernandez was the District Coach for the East Texas Olympic Development Program governed by the United States Soccer Federation from 1991-1998. He coached at the competitive club level for several years where teams participated in the prestigious soccer leagues of Lake Highland, Arlington and Plano, Texas. During his tenure at Texas College from 2004 to 2011, he built the soccer program into a successful dynasty, and is recognized for winning the Red River Athletic Conference Championship in 2006.

The Hernandez family has been an inspiration of service to the community and the expansion of the soccer association in Tyler, Texas and its surrounding communities. Coach Hernandez has been married for many years and they are blessed with four wonderful children who inspire him. His older son is a professional soccer player with Football Club Dallas of Major League Soccer, the younger son attended Southern Methodist University on a full soccer scholarship; the younger daughter followed in her father's footsteps, coaching soccer; and the oldest daughter is a surgical nurse.

Coach Hernandez obtained a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a minor in Accounting, and a Bachelor of Arts in Education in 1969 from Hidalgo College in Reynosa, Mexico.