Junior Ramses Hernandez will have a lot on his shoulders when the basketball season opens in a few weeks for the Talihina Golden Tigers.

“He’s our only player back who had major minutes last year,” said coach Toby Hawkins. “We graduated three players and had a couple that left when we dropped football this year, so I’ll be looking to Ramses to hopefully lead the team in scoring, in effort and on defense and as a team leader by the way he plays. We had our first real practice the other day and I was impressed by the way he set the tone for the team and got after it.”

Ramses has dedicated all his athletic abilities to basketball since he was about six years old.

“I started playing AAU ball pretty early and feel like I’ve been playing my entire life. My brothers both played and so I’ve just grown up around it. I guess my role model and mentor would have to be Will Holiman (now the head coach at McAlester) who was my AAU coach was for eight years and taught me so much.”

Even though Ramses knows that he’ll be carrying a lot of responsibility this year, he says he’s ready.

“I’m really excited to step up as a team leader. I’ve been waiting for this year. I’m really pretty much self-motivated and I’ve worked really hard in the off season to prepare. I don’t really care about how many points I have, I just want to be able to lead the team and win.”

As Ramses moves into the role of team leader, he has some pretty solid thoughts on what his role should be.

“I think the way you lead might vary with the situation, so you have to be able to step up in the moment and make the right plays and encourage your teammates when they mess up and not just get upset about it.”

Being an athlete of high character is also important to Ramses.

“Good character to me is about good sportsmanship. In these times there’s so much disrespect and trash talk that goes on and I don’t like it. I just don’t think all that shows good character or sportsmanship.”