Coaching icon Hank Bernat dies at 90
Having an athletic field named for you is one of the ultimate honors a coach or athlete can receive.
Having the honor bestowed while still alive ... that’s even more special, a testament to the high regard in which a person is held by his teammates and the community.
Henry “Hank” Bernat was accorded that honor in 2014, the football field at Owen J. Roberts High’s Wildcat Stadium named for him. It was just a part of the rich legacy Bernat, who died late Wednesday at age 90, leaves from his 30 years heading the Wildcat grid program.
“It’s very unfortunate. We lost a really good person,” Dave Strock, the school’s former athletic director, said.
Strock had unique ties with Bernat. He played for Bernat during his high-school days of 1964-66 — the early years of Bernat’s tenure at OJR (196090) — and became the athletic director in 1982.
“He did a lot for the community and Owen J. Roberts,” Strock said. “He represented us in a very positive manner, not just football but the school district.”
During his time at Bucktown, Bernat won 195 games and 10 combined championships in both the Ches-Mont League and Pioneer Athletic Conference. The honors accorded the
Phoenixville native included induction into the Chester County Sports Hall of Fame.
The field-naming accolade in his lifetime was one Bernat shared with two other Pottstown area football coaching legends: Rick Pennypacker at Pottsgrove and Jim Mich at St. Pius X. Pennypacker, whose three-decade coaching career overlapped Bernat’s for two years, remembered one particular wisdom Hank imparted to him the first time they coached against each other.
“We lost to Owen J. in 1989,” Pennypacker recalled. “When I was talking with Henry after the game, he said, ‘It’s going to be a challenge to walk into a losing locker room and make the kids want to play football the following week.’”
Conversely, Pennypacker’s Falcons won the next year’s game with the Falcons on the way to the first PAC-10 championship of his coaching tenure.
“After the game, Hank said to me, ‘Young guy, come down to the firehouse later and have a beer.’ That showed the kind of coach he was. If it had been me, I would have been at home covering my head with a pillow.”
Mich, himself a coaching icon at St. Pius X, crossed paths with Bernat from the time the school joined the Ches-Mont (1977) until his retirement in 1985. Mich remembered the teams’ game in 1984, both touted as good programs in the preseason.
“OJR had Danny Crossman then,” he recalled. “At halftime they were ahead 20-6 or 20-7, Pius was shocked, because Crossman took a punt and returned it for a touchdown at the end of the first half.
“I remember it because there were a lot of good athletes from both schools on the field. It was a good football game against a good team.”
Mich went on to join the Kutztown University football program in the late 1980s. In that capacity, he saw a number of Roberts gridders play for the Golden Bears and marvelled at their character and Bernat’s influence on it.
“He was a good man and great coach,” Mich said. “He was a good influence on a lot of young kids.”
Among the legions of players Bernat coached were a handful who made it to the professional ranks.
Dave Strock played two years (1974-75) in the long-defunct World Football League, and his brother, Don Strock, spent 14 years of his 16-year National Football League career as a quarterback for the Miami Dolphins.
Others include Jerry Ostroski, an OJR player in the 1980s who logged eight years with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills; and Dan Crossman, currently special teams coordinator for the Dolphins who served in similar capacities with the Carolina Panthers (2007-09), Detroit Lions (2010-12) and Bills (2013-18).
“He taught you how play the game ... not rah-rah, but by working hard and concentration,” Strock noted. “Very professional.”
For his career, Bernat compiled a 195-133-17 record and 10 league championships: Eight in the Ches-Mont League (1970, 1972, 1975, 1980 co-championship with Spring-Ford, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987) and three after the district joined the Pioneer Athletic Conference (1989, 1990, 1993),
Accolades accorded Bernat during his career include eight Coach of the Year honors and 15 by Philadelphia-area media. He was inducted to the Pennsylvania Football Coaches Hall of Fame and the Tri-County Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame along with the Ches-Mont League Hall of Fame.
Beyond the statistics and personal recognition, Bernat was a person held in the highest esteem by coaching counterparts, players and fans. One in particular was Mark DeFusco, who played for Owen J. the last three years of Hank’s career.
“What I remember most about Coach is the impact that he had on the young men that he coached,” DeFusco said. “He was at my wedding, as I am sure that he was invited to attend hundreds of his players’ weddings. It says a lot about the man, that so many wanted him to witness such an important day in their lives.
“I remember every Thanksgiving, after he retired, the steady stream of players that would say hello and pay their respects to Coach as he sat in the stands, and then recently, when he wasn’t as mobile and would watch from his car. People would wait in line to say hello to him there. He had time for everyone, and always made you feel like you were one of his boys.”
A native and resident of Phoenixville who graduated from Phoenixville High, Bernat’s ties to Owen J. Roberts dated back to 1955. He joined the faculty as a biology teacher and served as the school’s first basketball coach.
“Members of the Pottstown community think of him as a football coach,” Larry Glanski, a former OJR player and current Perkiomen Valley High athietic director,