Jerald L. Hoover

Jerald L. Hoover is multi-talented, and his creativity in the literary and entertainment world have garnered abundant success and multiple accolades. In 1993, he was awarded Best New Male Writer of the Year by the Literary Society in Virginia for his novella My Friend, My Hero. For this book, Jerald was also listed as a bestselling author among young black writers, from 1994 – 1996, in various African-American publications. 

 

In 1995, he was awarded the WritersCorp Award by President Bill Clinton. In 1998, Jerald was inducted into the Mount Vernon Boy’s and Girl’s Club Hall of Fame. This is the same club in which Denzel Washington grew up and still supports. 

 

In 2003, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion awarded Jerald with the Citation of Merit award for his work with the youth of Bronx elementary and middle schools. In 2007, Basketball Hall of Fame and New York Post writer Peter Vecsey featured Jerald in a Sunday story, recognizing him for his first documentary, Four Square Miles to Glory.  And in 2011, Jerald was nominated honorable mention for the Best Sportswriter of Year Award, by Black Press Radio. Also in 2011, Jerald’s My Friend, My Hero screenplay was a semi-finalist in the Gotham Screenplay Contest.

 

Jerald is a sportswriter who has covered the New York Knicks and the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets for the Black Athlete Sports Network, The Network Journal, Sportstyle New York, Pure Sports New York, and BustaSports.com. Hoover teaches at Long Island University as an adjunct Sports Communication professor. He directed documentaries on Grammy Award-winning hip-hop legend, Kool Moe Dee and famed New York City basketball standout, Felipe Lopez for the Life in the Day series sponsored by Long Island University in Brooklyn. 

 

In 2015, Jerald was hired for the summer to teach a group of visiting South Korean youths, English basics. And in 2016, Jerald was selected to teach abroad in Beijing, China to a group of high school students Business English; prepping them for their visit to the United States in the summer of 2017 for further study. 

 

Jerald has also directed plays for his church’s annual convocation for the past ten years. He is a Sunday School teacher who overcame a speech impediment he suffered since childhood and has become an in-demand motivational speaker where he speaks with students in schools across the country.

 

My Friend, My Hero is the first of a four-part series titled, The Hero Book Series. He Was My Hero, Too, A Hopeful Hero, and Hoop Hero are the other titles that make up the set. Each title has the word ‘hero’ embedded in it for the purpose of Jerald wanting young people, in particular, to see the hero in themselves through the lives of the identifiable and relatable characters.

 

It took nine years to get his first book published after forty rejections and sixty drafts. The first nine drafts were written by hand because his family could not afford a typewriter or computer. But, now My Friend, My Hero is celebrating over twenty-five years in print.