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On the far side of the Lanier Alumni Center, there are giant photos of the Voks’ 1943 and 1945 state championship teams.
While Lanier fans and other visitors see a group of young men who reached the pinnacle of Texas high school boys basketball success, Voks coach Rudy Bernal recognizes that, and more.
Bernal gazes upon many familiar faces from his childhood.
“That was one of the things that appealed to me,” the 31st-year Lanier coach said. “Just being able to coach at the place where my dad went to school. It was an opportunity many people don’t get.
“That’s a great thing for me, to be able to see my dad every time I walk into that gym. My dad passed away five years ago, but when I was growing up I would see a lot of those guys in the pictures when he was officiating or playing basketball with them.
“My father and all of my aunts and uncles went to Lanier.”
His father, Ramiro Bernal, was a guard on the 1943 championship team and is pictured, along with his teammates. His uncle, Gilbert Bernal, wore a Voks uniform in 1945. They were coached by San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame inductee Nemo Herrera. The Alumni Center court is named in his honor.
“I met him, I think, a couple of times when I was growing up,” Bernal said of Herrera. “I didn’t get a chance to sit down and talk with him. I was still fairly young, but I knew who he was and the great things he’d done at Lanier.
“When I got the job, I wanted to know more about what Coach Herrera instilled in his players, because I wanted to do the same thing with my guys.”
Ramiro Bernal won the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for his service in World War II. When he returned to San Antonio, he coached CYO basketball and refereed basketball games during his off hours from his job selling All-State insurance.
“My dad always enjoyed that element of things,” Bernal said, referring to talking basketball strategy. “Outside of work, he spent a lot of time coaching me – and it was always nice having him there doing that and seeing the enjoyment he got out of it.”
As a student at the University of Houston, after graduating from Lee High School, the Lanier coach initially planned a career as a pharmacist. In his second year in the pre-pharmacy program, he took Organic Chemistry and coaching began to gain in allure.
Bernal has concocted a 557-438 career record, well into his final season at Lanier. His current team has a 14-4 record after losing its District 28-4A opener 49-46 in overtime to Edison Dec. 20.
“If you’re going to rank coaches in San Antonio,” Southside coach Romy Vela said, “you have to rank him as one of the top coaches in the city.
“Whenever you play a Rudy Bernal team, you’d better be well-prepared, because he’s going to be well prepared.”
Vela, curiously enough, has never matched wits with Bernal in a game, although both began their 500-plus-win coaching careers in 1983. The 58-year-old Bernal was an assistant coach for five years, primarily in the South San district, before landing his only head coaching job at Lanier.
Although he is resigning his post at Lanier, Bernal intends to continue coaching at a destination to be determined in future seasons.
“I’m retiring as an educator, but I want to be able to coach some more,” he said. “To be able to just coach, I’d have to do that at the private-school level. It just depends on what’s around. At the end of the season, I’ll look at what’s out there and see if there’s a place for me.”
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