 Willard Hershberger was born in Lemon Cove, California. His family moved to Fullerton, California, when his father, Claude, got a job working in the city's oil fields. He lived in Fullerton with his father, his mother Maude, and his sister Lois. Hershberger attended Fullerton Union High School, where he distinguished himself on both the baseball and football teams, playing alongside Arky Vaughan and future President Richard Nixon. The 1926 baseball team won the California Interscholastic Federation championship, and in 2003, he was named to the school's All-Time baseball team.
