Marmion grad earns academic honor

ABOVE: Catherine McClellan scores the first goal of the game for Waubonsie Valley during Tuesday's game against South Elgin at Streamwood. BELOW: Waubonsie's Megan Green dribbles the ball as a Storm defender chases. The Warriors won 6-0.
Photos by Herb Shenkin / for the Beacon News

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He's a soccer player and more -- so much more.

That's why soccer midfielder Eric Hermosillo was recently named DePaul's 2008-09 Big East Institutional Scholar Athlete of the Year. The Marmion graduate from Batavia will be the first member of his family to graduate from college when he earns his accounting degree this spring.

"My parents (Armando and Irma) came over from Mexico," said Hermosillo, who carries a 3.6 grade point average. "Dad never got to go to college. My mom attended a year at the University of Guadalajara before coming to the U.S. with my dad."

The league award includes a $2,000 scholarship. Hermosillo will use it for classes that help prepare him to take the CPA exams or his pursuit of a graduate degree.

On the pitch, he wasn't a superstar at DePaul but a key contributor as part of a senior class that laid a strong foundation for a once-struggling program. Off it, he put up those stellar classroom numbers that netted him Big East Academic honors three times and a fourth is likely coming.

"He's just a terrific student athlete and really the embodiment of what it takes to be successful," said DePaul coach Craig Blazer, whose team moved to the Big East in Hermosillo's freshman year.

"It's a challenging effort to be a starter in the Big East Conference. It's one of the power soccer conferences in the country."

Hermosillo, the Suburban Catholic Conference Player of the Year and a Beacon News All-Area selection as a senior in high school, ranked fourth in career scoring with 46 goals and 35 assists when he graduated in 2005.

The midfielder didn't come close to those numbers in college, netting only three career goals.

"Every year he did everything that we asked of him, sometimes as a starter, sometimes off the bench," said Blazer. "We have 30 guys on the roster and we travel with 18. It's a real challenge every year to be an athlete who makes those trips and he always did."

And it's those travels Hermosillo cherishes.

"Just being able to go to different places like New York, Pittsburgh, Connecticut, South Florida and other programs in the Big East with my best friends to play soccer was almost like living a professional's career," he said.

"To go places and play the sport you love to play was great. Then, to see some of the guys you played against playing in the MLS or on the national team was great, too."

After struggling his first two years, DePaul turned things around. The Blue Demons went 12-7-1 his junior season and made the first of two straight appearances in the league tournament's Final Four as well as the school's first NCAA Tournament appearance.

And posting a winning record the past two seasons is the first time the program has done that in its 27 years.

"The program has definitely turned around for the better," said Hermosillo.

He will continue to play the game he loves.

"A couple of guys I played with at Marmion are all graduating (from college) this spring and we're getting a team together to play in the adult men's league in Aurora," Hermosillo said.

He will be joined by former Cadets Mike Schuenemann, who played at St. Ambrose University, and Chris Shouse, who started his collegiate career at Wisconsin-Parkside and finished at North Central College.