March 25
March 25, 2009
Vernal Oliver Sr.
March 27, 2009
There is no more space on Brianne Bergeron’s varsity jacket to place a patch.
That’s what happens when you are a multiple 1st Team All-District selection in volleyball, swimming and soccer, and a 1st Team All-State pick in volleyball.
“I need to find a spot on my jacket for (the All-State) patch because it’s going to be the biggest one,” Bergeron declared.
Still, there is one more sport the 18-year-old H.L. Bourgeois senior wants to conquer before she graduates as the school’s valedictorian: the pole vault.
It is the sport Bergeron has the least experience with, but that has not stopped her from becoming one of the area’s best.
She won her first five pole vault events this season after a victory Tuesday at the Terrebonne Parish Meet at Vandebilt Catholic.
For someone who has always been a team player, pole vaulting offers Bergeron a chance for individual success.
“I love team sports. You have to give it your all and work together, but pole vaulting is just so different from everything else,” she said. “It’s a personal thing. You can better your best every time. I set a personal best (on Tuesday) at 10 (feet), six (inches). Having a good coach, you have the confidence to go do it. It’s fun.”
Bergeron’s best came at the South Terrebonne Gator Relays on March 13.
The Bourgeois senior had competed in the pole vault as a freshman at Evergreen Junior High. However, since she also runs the 110-meter hurdles and the 400- and 800-meter relays, she could not always attend practice with local pole vault guru Kevin Trosclair. So she dropped pole vaulting.
Bergeron got back into it just before last year’s district meet, where she placed fourth. That was good enough to qualify for the 3-5A Regional Meet, which she won. She placed fifth in the state meet at LSU.
“She has made great progress. I only wish she had started sooner because I think she has a lot of talent,” Trosclair said.
Bergeron excels equally as well out of the athletic arena.
The 4.0 honor student is senior class president and vice president of the student council at Bourgeois. She is also a Special Olympics volunteer with St. Bernadette’s Church Youth Group and serves as a counselor for the Red Ribbon Committee and for Free Enterprise Week at Nicholls State.
For her accomplishments on and off the field, Bergeron was named the state’s female Wendy’s High School Heisman Award winner in January.
“That was such an honor,” she said. “To be chosen out of the whole state for good athletics and good academics and service, it was so amazing to go meet other kids who are just as good as you at everything. I made some good friends that I will probably go to college with next year through that.”
Bergeron plans to major in pre-med biological sciences at LSU in the fall. She has not decided what medical field to pursue.
So how does she find the time and energy for four sports, academic excellence and numerous charitable activities?
“I really don’t know how I find the time,” Bergeron admitted. “It helps that I don’t really need to study a lot. I’m just gifted. I finish my schoolwork at school. When I get out of school, it’s sports and clubs, and I try to do as much as I can.”
According to her parents, 1981 Bourgeois graduates Todd and Sydney Bergeron, Brianne has been at this busy pace since she was a young girl.
“I think it’s just the support we give her to do all the things she wants to do,” her mother explained. “We told her in the fifth grade she could do as many sports as she wants as long as she keeps her grades up. She kept her grades at a 4.0. So we just make the time for it – whatever it takes. Last year, we went from track meets to travel volleyball games. We’d be driving at 3 in the morning to the place we needed to go while she would sleep in the back seat.”
The Bergerons make it a point to be at both of their children’s games, Brianne’s and 13-year-old son Brady’s. They can count on one hand how many events they have missed since the two have been competing, according to Todd Bergeron.
Brianne likes having a busy schedule because it keeps her from getting lackadaisical.
“I’m just trying to get as much as I can out of my high school experience,” she said. “There’s no point sitting around wasting your time when you can be there helping somebody or having fun playing a sport with your friends.”
Brianne’s first love in sports is volleyball. She began playing with the Terrebonne Parish Recreation league in the sixth grade. She also played on travel volleyball teams for the Bayou Bandits and the Cayenne Volleyball Club out of Thibodaux.
As a setter for Bourgeois, Bergeron established the all-time school record in assists with 2,789. Last year, she was named District 6-I MVP, claimed her second consecutive 1st Team All-District honor and 1st Team All-State honor.
Despite her career marks, she will not bring her game to the court at LSU.
“We (she and Bourgeois volleyball coach Peter Verrett III) had sent out tapes. I talked to the assistant coach at the University of Texas-Dallas,” Bergeron said. “He wanted me to go try out, but I decided I really wanted to go to a big school with that big college atmosphere. So I chose LSU.”
Before she heads to Baton Rouge, there is one important trip Bergeron wants to make this summer: a missionary trip to Nicaragua.
“One of my friends on the (Bayou Black) summer swim team, she goes to Nicaragua every summer,” Bergeron said. “So my mom and I talked to her family about going this summer.”
Missionary work runs in the Bergeron family. Todd’s mother, Mercedes, is president of the Louisiana chapter of the World of Hope Foundation. She has made eight trips to the Philippines, Bosnia and other locales over the past 15 years.
“I guess Brianne stemmed off of that and wants to help the less fortunate,” her father said. “We went on a cruise last summer to Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and Cozumel. She saw the poverty over there, and I think it really hit hard with her.”
Although the trip is still in the planning stages, Bergeron can hardly conceal her anticipation.
“I don’t know what to expect. I’ve never done anything like this, so I’m just open to all the possibilities,” she said. “I know it’s going to be a great experience because I’m going to be giving all of my talents and work ethic to help other people.”
While she waits to inspire others, Bergeron has something to inspire her for the rest of the track season – a third spot on the H.L. Bourgeois Wall of Fame.
Her photo already adorns the Academic All-State and Athletic All-State wall for volleyball. Another place for the pole vault would be a glorious capper to her Bourgeois career.
“Every day you pass (the wall) and it’s just the greatest athletes that have been at H.L.,” she said. “I’m hoping to do well in pole vaulting at state so I could go on the wall again. That would be nice.”
This year’s Louisiana female Wendy’s High School Heisman winner Brianne Bergeron keeps her form tight as she clears the vault at the South Terrebonne Gator Relays. * Photo by KEYON K. JEFF
