Return to Transcripts main page
CNN News Central
Fernando Mendoza Leading Indiana Football to New Heights; Father Lobbies for Better Benefits for Wounded Veterans. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired January 01, 2026 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:30:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A sensational season propelled by a thrilling catch and unthinkable win over rival Penn State.
MARCUS EARNEST, IU FRESHMAN: We had two hell of a games. We had PSU, Oregon. We're going to the playoffs. We're beating Ohio State. We're having one hell of a year. Go Hoosiers!
(APPLAUSE)
CROWD: Yeah!
GINGRAS (voice-over): What Mendoza is doing in this part of the country, few thought would ever happen.
CAROLYN GOERNER, FACULTY CHAIR, IU KELLEY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: Previously with football, we would sit and try to count, OK, can we get our six wins to be Bowl eligible. Now, it's number two in the country. OMG!
GINGRAS (voice-over): The more you talk to Fernando Mendoza, the more you learn he doesn't fit the mold. He talks like a ferocious jock.
FERNANDO MENDOZA, INDIANA HOOSIERS QUARTERBACK: My whole thing is to always stay hungry and always stay in the hunter mentality.
GINGRAS (voice-over): Until he finishes that sentence.
MENDOZA: So, I do that by deleting most and basically all my social media. The only social media I do check is LinkedIn and YouTube.
GINGRAS (voice-over): That's right, LinkedIn. Mendoza is a business school grad, a bookworm with dreams of someday holding an office in the C-suite of a major company.
MENDOZA: Football has been a huge part of my life, but I would say even a larger part of my life is the family and community aspect.
GINGRAS (voice-over): So, who exactly is Fernando Mendoza? To answer that, we had to go 1,200 miles south to Miami, Florida. DAVE DUNN, FOOTBALL COACH, COLUMBUS HIGH SCHOOL: Do I get to join the union?
GINGRAS: Yeah.
(LAUGH)
GINGRAS (voice-over): Meet Dave Dunn. He coached Mendoza at Columbus High School in Miami.
DUNN: He's a football nerd. He's super intelligent and I don't mean football nerd in a bad way.
GINGRAS: This isn't an insult.
DUNN: Yes. He showed up to his very first meeting with me when he was 15-years-old with a notebook and a pen. And he took notes in every single meeting.
GINGRAS: And Fernando as a person?
DUNN: He's definitely the type of young man you want your daughter to marry. Fernando's name on it right there, it's pretty cool.
GINGRAS (voice-over): Dunn didn't just coach Fernando. He also coached his younger brother, Alberto.
DUNN: Every time we've won a state championship, there's been a Mendoza on the roster.
GINGRAS: Wow. What a legacy.
DUNN: Yeah. It's -- they'll remind me we haven't won one since they've left.
(LAUGH)
GINGRAS: Alberto was Fernando's backup quarterback in high school, and they're still together. Alberto is a Hoosier and Fernando's backup once again.
DUNN: Loved coaching both of them and would take either of them back in a heartbeat.
(LAUGH)
GINGRAS: They're extremely competitive with each other, but they're still brothers --
DUNN: Yep.
GINGRAS: -- playing on the same team.
DUNN: It's what drives them is that they can kind of get under each other's skin in a good way to push themselves to be better, but also being loving and supporting in the same sense. GINGRAS (voice-over): Fernando also credits his work ethic to his grandparents, who are Cuban immigrants. It may be what helped him get into Yale University for both academics and football. But he turned it down, always hoping he'd end up at a top-tier football program.
FERNANDO: I was never a large recruit. I was a two-out-of-five-star recruit.
DUNN: I was even calling friends in the industry that I'm like, I'm not saying this kid's a can't-miss. I go, but he's pretty darn close to it.
GINGRAS: You should look at him.
DUNN: And nobody would bite, and it was frustrating.
GINGRAS: Are you having those moments now?
DUNN: A little bit.
GINGRAS: Like a pretty woman where you're like, big mistake.
DUNN: Yeah, big mistake, yeah.
GINGRAS: Huge mistake.
DUNN: Yeah, exactly, yeah.
GINGRAS (voice-over): At the heart of Fernando's success is home. In almost every interview, he mentions two things, his faith and his family.
FERNANDO: I'm so proud to be able to play for them. And you know, because they're my why, especially my mom, like they're my why.
GINGRAS (voice-over): Fernando and Alberto's mom, Elsa, is living with multiple sclerosis.
FERNANDO: She is the most optimistic, positive person and our inspiration.
GINGRAS (voice-over): Back in Indiana, at IU's go-to spot, BuffaLouie's, the boys proudly do their part to raise awareness.
GINGRAS: So we have the BuffaLouie-Mendoza Bros. Burger.
ED SCHWARTZMAN, OWNER, BUFFALOUIE'S: Yes.
GINGRAS: How did you link up with the Mendoza brothers?
SCHWARTZMAN: We get this e-mail saying, would you be willing to come up with a burger to support the Mendoza's mom, Elsa, in her fight against MS?
GINGRAS: So it's a Cuban and burger (inaudible).
SCHWARTZMAN: Kind of, sort of, yes.
GINGRAS: OK.
SCHWARTZMAN: It's our spin on the Cuban. They're not doing it to raise money as much as it is just awareness, to do something.
CROWD: A one, a two, you know what to do. Indiana! Indiana!
GINGRAS (voice-over): With each convincing win, every improbable upset.
DUNN: You always want to root for the underdog.
GINGRAS (voice-over): The stakes are raised.
FERNANDO: I would say that pressure is a privilege.
GINGRAS (voice-over): Fernando's name isn't just being whispered among Heisman talks.
CROWD: Heismandoza!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Over there and over there.
GINGRAS (voice-over): It's being chanted.
GINGRAS: I mean, Heismandoza has a nice ring to it.
DUNN: It does. Yes. I think for him, a big part of it is going to be validation that, you know, I am good enough. He's going to be the first, I believe, first Cuban-American ever to win the Heisman trophy.
FERNANDO: It's definitely a great honor to be in that conversation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Curt, welcome to IU.
(APPLAUSE)
GINGRAS (voice-over): Curt Cignetti, He's the head coach pulling the Hoosiers' strength, turning underestimated players into stars, and making the impossible possible for Indiana.
CURT CIGNETTI, HEAD FOOTBALL COACH, INDIANA UNIVERSITY: It's pretty simple. I win. Google me.
TYLER ALFONSI, IU JUNIOR: He literally said, we do not lose. And then we didn't lose.
GINGRAS (voice-over): His winning record earned him a multi-million dollar contract extension, now making him the fourth highest paid college football coach in the game.
GINGRAS: You've turned this town from a basketball town into a football town. What does that mean to you and your players?
CIGNETTI: It's really hard for me to step back sometimes and think about what we've accomplished here. It's been fun, and let's have more fun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's really galvanized the student body, the town, the state of Indiana to become a football place.
[13:35:00]
GINGRAS (voice-over): In just two seasons, IU remains undefeated at home.
FERNANDO: Look at us, a bunch of misfits, a bunch of transfers, a bunch of rejects.
GINGRAS (voice-over): Ended this season perfect.
FERNANDO: They got replaced with their old schools coming to Indiana.
GINGRAS (voice-over): Has broken several school records.
FERNANDO: Coming 12-0 for the first time in Indiana Hoosiers' history.
GINGRAS (voice-over): And are real contenders to play for a national championship.
GALEN CLAVIO, HOST, CRIMSONCAST PODCAST: It just goes to show that if you put the resources towards a program and really are focused on trying to build something, you can do it.
GINGRAS: It's very Field of Dreams, isn't it?
PAT PLOUGHE, HOOSIER FAN: Yeah, well, if you build it, they will come. And I mean, they've been here for years, just not inside this stadium.
(LAUGH)
GINGRAS: For those who slept on IU --
CLAVIO: Yeah.
GINGRAS: What do you say to them?
CLAVIO: Welcome to the party.
GINGRAS: Cheers, guys. Go IU.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cheers. Go Hoosiers.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Our thanks to Brynn Gingras for that. And after the break, helping you cure that holiday hangover. Come on, we know some of you are out there nursing them. The best methods to ease your misery.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [13:40:18]
KEILAR: We're looking at live pictures out of New York. That is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez giving welcoming remarks ahead of the city's newest mayor, Zohran Mamdani, being sworn in publicly. That's going to happen in not too long here. We're going to bring that to you when it does.
So if you celebrated big last night, or maybe you had some cheap champagne, I don't know, but chances are you may be feeling the consequences of that today. People around the world celebrating the New Year, some with a toast, or two, or three. Some with more, let's be honest. Is there an easy cure for that hangover that some of you might be feeling out there today?
We have Dr. Trisha Pasricha joining us to talk about it. She is a physician scientist at Harvard Medical School. I think some people may need your advice today, doctor. So talk to us about this. If some people have just been waking up kind of late post festivities, they're starting to feel the effects of last night, what are the first things that they should do? Coffee, Advil, fried chicken sandwich? What do you think?
DR. TRISHA PASRICHA, ASK A DOCTOR COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yeah, thanks for having me back, Brianna. You know, I think probably the best and most underrated piece of advice I can give anyone is to just go back to sleep. And you know, you might be saying, well, I just woke up at noon, I've been sleeping for 12 hours, I still feel crummy. And that is because alcohol fragments your sleep.
So you may have been in bed for 12 hours, might have slept a long amount of time, but you actually didn't get that deep, restorative sleep that your brain and your body needs. So, sleep is actually a huge thing. That's number one. Number two, hydration.
So we know that alcohol dehydrates you. Plain, old-fashioned tap water is what you need right now, unless you've been vomiting a lot or sweating a lot, in which case you might want to consider an electrolyte solution. Hydrate well, go back to sleep.
These two things are what your body needs right now. The rest of why alcohol and a hangover makes you feel crummy, a lot of that has to do with inflammation. So alcohol causes a lot of inflammation throughout your body. Studies have found that even after your blood alcohol levels return to normal, your brain waves are moving more slowly for several hours afterwards.
And if I were to do an endoscopy right now, meaning I would do a procedure where I take a look at your stomach, we see this all the time. Someone who's been recently drinking, the lining of your stomach would appear inflamed, it would appear red. So -- and that's because alcohol irritates the lining of your stomach.
So I do want people to eat. So right now, focus on eating foods that are not going to make that inflamed stomach even angrier. So bland foods, things like rice, bread, bananas, those are the kinds of things that your body needs. It can kind of help settle that nausea, help settle those jitters, hydrate, go back to sleep.
KEILAR: OK, so what should people not be doing? I'm assuming, maybe they have some goals for January 1. Would you not suggest they jump into their high-impact interval training first thing when they wake up? What would you say?
PASRICHA: I think when you have a hangover, you want to give yourself a little bit of grace and give your body, give your brain a little bit of time to recover and maybe hit the gym, hit the outdoors hard January 2. I mean, the good news is that if you do some of these simple things, the hangover is going to go away by later tonight, worst case tomorrow morning. That inflammation, it takes time.
And there's not a lot that you can do besides some of these things to kind of help make that go away on its own. But the good news is that that inflammation is going to calm down on its own by tomorrow. I mean, the regret, that might take a little bit longer, but you're going to feel better at least by the next day.
KEILAR: Yeah, good reminder that people are tired and they're dehydrated and they're inflamed, so those are the issues they're countering. I want to ask you about something, which is, it's January 1st and a lot of people may be doing dry January. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel actually just wrote for TIME Magazine why you should skip dry January. He says that people just jump right back into your old habits after the end of the month and that there are better ways to approach things if your goal is better health. What do you think about dry January and maybe alternatives?
PASRICHA: You know, I think any steps that anyone wants to take to start to limit their alcohol intake is only going to be a good thing. For some people, dry January is a good place to start, but it's often just a stepping point. There have actually been studies that show that even if you don't sort of stick with it long-term, you can even have short-term benefits from just limiting your alcohol even just for a couple of weeks.
I think actually the biggest one that is -- the one that you're probably going to feel most immediately is you're just going to sleep better. The less alcohol you drink, the more easily you're going to sleep. Of course, within the last year, a lot of us were talking about some of the big studies that came out about what alcohol does in the long term.
So last year, the big news was that, and this was the Surgeon General's big warning in 2024, was that no amount of alcohol is good for you when we're talking about cancer risk.
[13:45:00]
That was a big story because, even though in the past, we used to talk about how one or two glasses of wine might be good for your cardiovascular, for your heart health, many experts now consider some of those studies to be flawed.
We now know that, because alcohol is a carcinogen, it can actually increase your risk of cancer. Now within the last year, we've started to get these big studies that showed that even small amounts of alcohol now can increase your risk of dementia later. So, any steps that somebody wants to take right now to limit their alcohol has short-term benefits, and it also has long-term benefits. I think it's often part of how we socialize. It's part of how we have fun with our friends.
So I think it's important, one, to have an accountability buddy, so a friend who's going to get in on this with you, and then, two, to think about what am I going to do if I'm not going to drink alcohol. Am I going to get into mocktails? What is that recipe going to be? I'm going to have something on hand. Make a plan and then go out and try to stick to that plan with somebody who's going to hold you accountable.
KEILAR: Dr. Trisha Pasricha, great to talk with you about this. Thank you for being with us.
PASRICHA: My pleasure. Happy New Year.
KEILAR: Happy New Year, and we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:50:32]
KEILAR: On today's Home Front, the push to provide desperately needed help to veterans with catastrophic injuries and their families who care for them. Republican lawmakers in the House introduced the Sharri Briley and Eric Edmundson Veterans Benefits Expansion Act. It's a bill that would expand benefits for veterans who suffer critical injuries during their service, but it goes beyond that, to help address what veterans groups call the hidden cost of trauma and the impact of that on families' resources and time.
Advocates say when you strengthen the caregiver, you strengthen the veteran. This bill is named for Sharri Briley, the widow of an Army Blackhawk pilot who was killed in Somalia in 1993. Also for Eric Edmundson, a former Army Sergeant whose Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2005, leading to shrapnel wounds, a heart attack, and a brain injury. In early December, Eric and his father testified on the Hill in favor of this bill, and I spoke to them afterward. Here's part of our conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEILAR: Eric and Ed, thank you so much for being with us.
EDGAR EDMUNDSON, FATHER AND CAREGIVER OF SGT. ERIC EDMUNDSON (RET.): Thank you for having us.
KEILAR: That must have been something to testify before Congress.
For our families of wounded warriors, there is a lot of invisible labor, and it is done with love.
EDMUNDSON: Yeah.
KEILAR: It's done with so much love.
EDMUNDSON: Yeah.
KEILAR: But it is a job that is all-consuming --
EDMUNDSON: Yeah.
KEILAR: And so important. So tell us what the extra support in this bill will mean for families like yours and so many others.
EDMUNDSON: Yeah. The passing of H.R. 6047 would mean a lot to Eric and all the hundreds of veterans like Eric who are catastrophically injured. It will help them not only in the present, but in the future.
It will help them cover expenses that he's having trouble covering now because the cost of living is astronomical. And they have not had an increase in compensation pay for years. And that's what we're on the Hill, advocating for is trying to get an increase.
KEILAR: Eric, did it surprise you to have a bill named for you? Tell us about the health challenges that Eric faces and what the health challenges that Eric faces and what that means for him day in, day out.
EDMUNDSON: Eric deals with a lot of health issues. Eric can't speak. He can't walk. He can't dress himself, feed himself. Eric has to have someone by his side 24/7, helping him dress, brush his teeth, get him ready for the day.
And Eric has, when he was injured, he suffered a traumatic brain injury, multiple injuries. He's full of shrapnel today. And then after they stabilized him, he had a heart attack. It took them 30 minutes to revive him. So on top of that, he has an anoxic brain injury, which is causing the majority of his issues today.
KEILAR: So you and your wife and Eric, your wife, have become your expert caregivers, right? And I think for our veterans, I think we know it's so important to honor their service and their sacrifice. But I do think it's sometimes easy for people to forget that part of that is honoring what the family members are doing for our veterans --
EDMUNDSON: Right.
KEILAR: -- to help them. How does it honor Eric's service and sacrifice, and the service and sacrifice of other wounded veterans, to make sure that their families are able to provide them the care they need and that they're able to get the care they need?
EDMUNDSON: Yeah. When Eric was injured and returned home from Iraq, we met him at Walter Reed, and he spent several days in the intensive care unit. But it was obvious to his mother and I that he was going to need long-term care.
[13:55:00] So we took our retirement, burnt down our debt load, so he could come on board with his wife, Stephanie, and help take care of Eric. And what we wanted was for Eric to be a husband and a father, Stephanie to be a mother and a wife. And I have to worry about all the day-to-day issues that come with being catastrophically injured.
And when Eric deployed, his daughter was 10-months-old. And you remember back in Walter Reed, he was laying there in his bed and his hands were laying there, but just weeks later before he deployed, those hands were holding his newborn daughter.
KEILAR: You made a choice about how you wanted life to look after that.
EDMUNDSON: We've been at this for 20 years. His daughter was 10- months-old when he was injured, and now 21, and a junior in college. And his son, Hunter is 15-years-old, a freshman in high school. We kept his children out of the caregiving. We wanted them to just be children, you know.
KEILAR: Yeah.
EDMUNDSON: And Eric's son, Hunter, at one time said, my dad -- he said, my dad's been through H-E-double hockey pucks.
(LAUGH)
KEILAR: Hockey pucks?
EDMUNDSON: H-E-double hockey pucks, and he's right. And Eric has endured things no mortal man should be enduring. And we're very proud of him and his family, and what they've done. Right.
KEILAR: You're very proud of your dad, too, Eric. Yeah.
EDMUNDSON: Yeah.
KEILAR: Eric, I can see it. I can see that you are.
Eric and Ed, thank you so much for being with us. This is such an important topic, and I really appreciate you being here to discuss it with us.
EDMUNDSON: Yeah.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
