Split Personality : Bernardi Tempted by the Opportunity to Rejoin Smith at Missouri, but He’ll Stay With Family and Burroughs

BURBANK — Gary Bernardi feels as if he’s being ripped in half. Too bad he can’t be cloned, because right now he would like to be two places at once.

The Burroughs High football coach desperately wants to return to college coaching, but he just as desperately needs to be with his three young children. He was forced to choose between parenthood and his career when Larry Smith, Bernardi’s former boss at USC, accepted the job at Missouri this week.

Bernardi, 38, worked for 12 years as Smith’s assistant, the last six at USC, where Bernardi coached tight ends, offensive tackles and special teams until Smith lost his job after last season. Bernardi might not have faced this problem had Smith found a new job right away.

Instead, while Smith sat out of coaching for a year and Bernardi considered his options before taking the Burroughs job, he spent time at home with daughter Marina, 9, and 6-year-old twins Joe and Briana.

Bernardi, who is separated from his wife but shares the children equally, has grown closer to his children during the past 12 months.

Still, when Smith came calling this week, Bernardi’s head began to spin. He yearned to return to big-time college coaching and is loyal to Smith. But when he looked at his children, he knew how to answer Smith.

“No thanks,” Bernardi said, barely believing the words as they left his mouth.

“I’d be lying to say I don’t want to get back into college coaching,” he said. “It’s been toying with me--tugging at me.”

But the tug he got from Marina when he told her about his dilemma was stronger. “She told me she understood if I felt I had to leave,” Bernardi said. “But if, in the long run, we wouldn’t be together, I shouldn’t go.”

Bernardi was shocked by Marina’s insight. Her response outweighed all the calls from more than 20 coaching friends who have counseled him the past week. The phone at his home in Saugus has barely stopped ringing.

“I got a call from an old friend who is a college coach at 5:30 (Thursday) morning,” Bernardi said. “He said he was up all night thinking about my situation and he said I really should go.

“Ten days ago, I was going.”

Bernardi had known for weeks that Smith was a strong candidate for the job, and he was prepared to make the leap from the Foothill League to the Big Eight Conference.

Bernardi proved himself an excellent head coach in his first year at Burroughs, leading an inexperienced team to the Southern Section playoffs and a 5-6 record one year after the Indians went 0-10.

Smith gave Bernardi his first college coaching job at Arizona. Over the next 12 years, a strong friendship developed between the two. Marina, Joe and Briana think Smith is part of their family. So how did they react when the news came over the car radio that Smith was hired by Missouri?

“They jumped out of their seats,” Bernardi said. “They knew what was going on. I downplayed the fact that I was thinking about taking the job. But I couldn’t conceal it.”

Soon after Bernardi lost his job at USC, he learned that his wife, Leigh, was filing for divorce. With an 11 1/2-year marriage suddenly dissolving, Bernardi focused on his children.

“I’ve had my eyes open about what I’ve missed when I was coaching,” he said at the start of the season. “Your kids are the greatest thing ever. But, at the same time, I haven’t got coaching out of my system.”

If he had accepted Smith’s offer, Bernardi said, he would be in Missouri today, working 18-hour days, breaking for only three days at Christmas, then returning to Missouri for another six weeks. As much as big-time coaching tempts him, Bernardi won’t leave his children. Joint custody of the kids will be part of the divorce agreement, he said.

“In December, 1993, I don’t want to close the door on college coaching,” he said. “But I’ve become loyal to the people at Burroughs. I’m loyal to Coach Smith, too. And that bothers me.

“I know I’m passing up a good opportunity professionally. But it’s what I have to do, because of the loyalty I have to my family.”