Football, Baseball
Favorite athlete: Aaron Rodgers
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Beating Abington in overtime last year
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: In my sophomore year, I scored a touchdown and I went to chest bump one of my teammates, and I almost wound up landing flat on the ground.
Music on iPod: Kid Cudi, Lil Wayne, Toby Keith, Jason Aldean, Lupe Fiasco
Future plans: Play football in college, go on to medical school, become a doctor and raise a family
Words to live by: ‘It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.’ Theodore Roosevelt
One goal before turning 30: Earn my doctorate in medicine
One thing people don’t know about me: I love playing golf. I work on a golf course, and I take any opportunity I can to get out on the course in my free time.
Josh Bernard, according to his coach, is ‘everybody’s All-American.’
“He’s a great kid,” Central Bucks East football coach John Donnelly said of his senior captain. “He’s involved in the school, he’s a high character kid, he’s a high academic kid, and he’s productive on the football field.
“If you were looking for somebody you’d want your son to grow up and be – Josh Bernard would be it.”
Bernard has been the starting quarterback for East’s football squad ever since he was named the starter midway through the season. He started five games that season and has been the Patriots’ field general ever since.
In week one of the season this year, Bernard singlehandedly accounted for more than 300 yards of offense – 230 in the air and 80 more on the ground.
“He’s a dynamic player,” Donnelly said. “He really knows the offense well, and he’s a huge key for us.”
Football, however, is just one aspect of Bernard’s life. In the spring, he is a member of East’s varsity baseball team, and there’s more. A whole lot more.
Bernard is involved in class government as a member of student senate. He also is a member of Key Club and the National Honor Society and takes a full course load of honors and AP classes.
His sights are set on one day becoming a doctor.
“I’ve always tried to get involved in things that help people,” Bernard said. “I got interested in science in high school, and seeing doctors through different sports injuries has gotten me interested in becoming a doctor.
“I’ve taken a following to it now and set it as a goal.”
Another goal Bernard has set is to continue playing football at the collegiate level. He is being recruited by Ivy and Patriot League schools.
“He’s a very coachable kid and a very competitive kid,” Donnelly said. “All the attributes you want in a quarterback – he really possesses.”
Interestingly, as a sophomore, Bernard was listed as an outside linebacker. He never saw action at linebacker, but he did earn the starting nod at quarterback five games into the season. Donnelly – then the head coach at Quakertown – had a chance to coach again his future QB.
“You could see that, as a sophomore, he had great feet and a lot of potential,” the Patriots’ coach said.
When Donnelly took over the helm at East last season, Bernard was one of his first contacts.
“We spent a lot of time together in the offseason – Saturday mornings, you name it, and he just sponges everything up,” Donnelly said. “He’s got a real good sense of what we’re doing and trying to accomplish.”
Last year, Bernard was the starting quarterback for an East squad that was 7-5 after going 3-7 the preceding year.
“Tenth grade was rough,” Bernard said of a year that saw the Patriots lose their coach midway through the season. “By the time I took over playing varsity, we didn’t really have a head coach, and everything was up in the air.
“From what we experienced that year, it really just brought our team together. We’re a band of brothers out there.”
Donnelly brought with him a sense of stability that had been lacking.
“In 11th grade with coach ‘D’ coming in – he knew we had something good going with the guys, and he came in and really stabilized the program and got it going back in the right direction,” Bernard said. “It’s like day and night different with him being here.”
Bernard has been playing football since he was in third grade, following in the footsteps of his older brothers.
“It’s in my family,” he said. “Pretty much every guy in my family played football from my uncles to my brothers who played at East before me.
“I got into it by throwing the ball around with my brother. Obviously, there’s a more violent aspect of football that makes it fun. It sets football apart from other sports in that way.”
This year, Bernard is actually playing both ways – in addition to playing quarterback, he also sees action at free safety.
“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “I tell my coach all the time I might start enjoying defense more than offense.
“It’s kind of fun to see the schemes of the defense as opposed to being on the offensive side and trying to pick it apart from that angle. Playing quarterback is kind of conducive to playing free safety because you’re trying to read the quarterback to figure out what he’s going to do.
“From that end, it’s advantageous to me. It’s easy to know what their reads are and what they’re trying to do.”
As for playing both ways, Bernard says he enjoys it.
“It’s tough, but it’s still a lot of fun being out on the field as much as you can to try and impact the game positively,” he said.
Despite Bernard’s impressive stats in game one, the Patriots came out on the short end of the score to Abington. They also fell to Norristown in week two, but Bernard remains optimistic.
“We sat down after the Norristown game, watched the film and learned from what we did wrong and picked out whatever bright spots we could,” he said. “The captains got together and talked to the team and said, ‘Listen, we’re at a critical point. We have to take a stand and start (playing our game).”
Bernard, according to Donnelly, is a positive leader.
“He’s a vocal leader when he needs to be, and he’s also a lead-by-example kind of guy,” the Panthers’ second-year coach said.
Despite his high level of commitment to football, Bernard still finds time to invest in his studies and devote time to extra curricular activities.
“It’s definitely tough,” he said. “You get off the field at 6:30, you come home, and you have two or three hours of homework to look forward to.
“It’s tough, but it also keeps me regimented and keeps me focused on what I need to do. It’s just a process – eat dinner, shower, do my homework and go to bed. It’s tough, but it obviously will pay off in the long run.”
Bernard is a 4.0 student despite a course load that includes AP Biology, AP Stat and AP Macroeconomics. As a junior, he took AP European History and Calculus and as a sophomore was enrolled in AP US History.
“It’s hard, but it’s worth it when you take the test and do well,” Bernard said.
As his senior project this year, Bernard is shadowing his neighbor – a pulmonologist at Doylestown Hospital.
“He actually works in the ICU,” Bernard said. “He showed me a couple of his patients, and I watched him perform a tracheotomy. It’s cool stuff.
“Becoming a doctor is a big goal I’ve set for myself. It’s what I strive for and work hard for in all my classes – to achieve that goal.”
Setting goals and then going out and achieving them is familiar territory for Bernard, who seems to have found a way to do it all.
