At the conclusion of Weehawken’s girls basketball games Alexsa Ruiz and Chris Hernandez walk to the car to head home. The trip back to their house typically takes 10 minutes, but depending on the result of the game, it can feel like an eternity.
“When we win, it’s a fast ride,” said Ruiz, the Indians’ senior point guard. “If we lost, then it’s a long ride.”
When the car pulls into the driveway and the ignition is turned off, so too is the head coach-player relationship. Hernandez and Ruiz walk into the house no longer as coach and player, but as stepfather and stepdaughter.
For the past four years Hernandez and Ruiz have successfully navigated the potential challenges of coaching one’s child, as well as the personal one of when a stepparent enters a teen’s life.
At the same time, they’ve helped contribute to one of the greatest stretches in program history. Weehawken is 10-1 and in position to win a third consecutive NJIC Meadowlands Division
Hernandez became the Weehawken girls basketball coach in 2012, taking over a program that had struggled for years. He knew that turning the program around and keeping kids in town required making himself a visible presence at rec-league games and practices. There, Hernandez quickly became familiar with Ruiz and Nicole Molano, who were sixth grade standouts at the time.
Hernandez and Ruiz’s mother Jonelle were working together at Thomas A. Edison Elementary School in Union City. Chris and Jonelle had known each other for years. Chris, a three-sport standout at Weehawken, played baseball and football with Jonelle’s brother, Joel Rodriguez, and was coached by her father. Joel is Alexsa’s godfather and an assistant on Hernandez’s staff.
Jonelle and Chris first started dating when Alexsa was in sixth grade. Two years later, they were married.
“It turned into a different relationship but she was always really good with it,” Hernandez said. “She’s well ahead of her age with her maturity and understanding that things are not always perfect and things happen. She’s good with that.”
It put Hernandez, who also coaches baseball and football, and Ruiz in a potentially awkward situation. What once was going to be a typical player-coach relationship, has changed in a big way.
“She was always going to be my player. She was always going to be my point guard. But then, along the way, she became my stepdaughter also,” Hernandez said. “I was looking forward to coaching her and I always vowed never to coach my kids and then I was kinda thrown into this one.”
“There was always that thought in the beginning, what if it just doesn’t work out with my mom?” said Ruiz, who talked with some of Hernandez’s varsity players at the time to learn more about him as a coach. “I think now, I see him more than my mom sees him. It was a little nerve-racking to think that I was going to be with him for four years. Hopefully it was going to work out.”
Ruiz admitted to being nervous about the situation leading up to the first practice of her freshman year.
With nine juniors and seniors on the roster, playing time was sparse for her and Molano at the beginning. As sophomores, the duo started carving out a bigger role on what proved to be a historic season for the Indians.
On Jan. 31, 2017, with Hernandez seeking a more guard-heavy lineup, Ruiz was inserted into the starting five for the first time and proceeded to score six points in a win over Becton. It was a game that Ruiz called a defining moment.
Another defining moment came six games later against Saddle Brook any perception that Ruiz got preferential treatment was shot down, as she noted that it was the first time she got yelled at by Hernandez.
“He was telling me to be more aggressive,” recalled Ruiz. “I was more nervous than anything. He knew that I could give more.
“But it was a good thing (he yelled at me) because we ended up winning that game and it basically clinched us the division.”
Two days later, Weehawken defeated Wallington to earn its first-ever division title in any girls sport. The Indians went on to set a school record for wins with 22.
As a junior, Weehawken repeated as NJIC Meadowlands Division champions with Ruiz and Molano as the centerpieces of a much younger Indians team.
Even as Ruiz’s role has grown from a freshman, just hoping to get on the court, to reserve, to the key starter, Hernandez has made sure that his treatment of her hasn’t changed.
“She knows and everybody else knows that she’s not my stepdaughter when she gets on this court, she is my point guard,” Hernandez said. “I make sure to let her know that every time when I’m talking to her as my stepdaughter and when I’m talking to her as my point guard.”
Both coach and point guard agree that they’ve done a pretty good job of not crossing the line between basketball and family.
One rule they have established is after games, discussion and critiques about what happened end the moment the car arrives home.
“We’re lucky. Well, she’s lucky that we live in Weehawken,” Hernandez said with a laugh. “I would say that her best days on the ride home after a rough day is when there’s no traffic. But we know that Weehawken traffic can be tough so it can be anywhere from 10 to a good 30 minutes.
“I’m not going to say that I don’t take the long way home on days that she needs to hear a little extra, but if I don’t have much to say, we get there pretty quick.”
While both Ruiz and Hernandez say that they do a good job of separating home and basketball, they do admit there have been occasional moments when those lines are crossed.
“We try to make sure where those lines are and I’m not going to lie, sometimes those lines get crossed,” Hernandez said. “Like when you’re at home and you’re like ‘Why are you eating that?’ or ‘Why are you going to the movies at 11? You’re going to be exhausted.’ Little things like that that other girls don’t have to deal with, she has to deal with. But she’s done a very good job of channeling it into a pretty good high school basketball career thus far.”
Ruiz, who has a younger brother LJ (age 16), sister Braelyn (9) and half-brother Christian (3), has a strong support system that helps provide balance within her life. Her godfather, Luis Rodriguez, serves as an assistant on Hernandez’s staff, runs the off-season conditioning program and also helps the girls with college prep.
During those offseason months, Hernandez’s role becomes that of a typical basketball parent, driving Ruiz, Molano and another teammate with Jonelle to AAU tournaments throughout the Northeast. A mere mention of some of those three-plus hour rides, immediately elicited laughs from Alexa.
“(Jonelle’s) great. She’s there for everything,” Hernandez said. “She’s the reason why we can do this. This whole thing is like a family affair.”
Ruiz’s father, Luis, lives in Union City and Alexsa often spends weekends there as well. Luis and his wife, three siblings, two of whom are Alexsa’s half-sisters, as well as a stepbrother.
Another outlet away from basketball for Alexsa has been cross-country.
“I’m very happy that I joined that,” she said. “It’s a different experience and very personal and more rewarding than you’d think. You’re running for your team, but you’re also running for yourself.”
With the season on-going and dreams of a third consecutive division title, neither Ruiz or Hernandez have thought too much about the realization that the coach-player phase of their relationship is nearing its conclusion.
“It definitely has crossed my mind, especially in the first scrimmage and first game. It’s hit me a couple of times that I’m not going to have my step-dad as my coach anymore,” Ruiz said. “I know if I want to play next year, I’m going to have to build a relationship with a new coach again. It’s a little tear-jerking to think about.”
This current crop of seniors – Ruiz, Molano, Erin Purcell, Sahiba Satara, Allish DeLeon and Brianna Mera – is a group that holds special meaning to Hernandez as well with the way they’ve grown from those sixth graders in recreation to accomplishing things no others in Weehawken history ever have.
“I had never coached girls before seven years ago, not even in rec ball,” Hernandez said. “I was around them since 6th grade. (Alexsa’s) group, the seniors leaving this year, will be the group of girls I’ve spent the most time knowing and being around. This is not a four-year deal, this is a seven-year culmination of emotions.
“I try not to think about it, but it’s definitely going to be one of the more emotional things I’ve had to deal with as a coach.”
