In the three years Jordan Berni has been away from organized basketball, a sport he never considered his first love and admitted never took too seriously in the past, he fell off the ladder of his athletic success after climbing to the top step.
Talent wasted. Life choices questions. Regrets made.
“There was a time,” said Berni, a 2013 Skyview graduate, “when I doubted everything.”
It’s even hard for him now to believe he’s playing college basketball.
Three years ago, he signed a letter of intent to play football at NCAA Division II Western Oregon after quarterbacking Skyview, then went 1,700 miles east to a national junior college football power only to return to Vancouver searching for answers.
Berni found it with new school and different sport: Clark College’s men’s basketball team.
Now 22, Berni calls his freshman season with the Penguins a fresh start that could turn into a possible four-year collegiate career in basketball. His 12.4 points-per-game average ranks second-best on the team for Clark (10-7 overall, 4-5 Northwest Athletic Conference South Region) entering Saturday’s home game against Umpqua (13-4, 5-1). Tip-off is 4 p.m.
He credits a growth in maturation and acquiring mental strength for getting him to where he is now: choosing not to give up on college or athletics, and instead, finding a path to success through roadblocks and detours.
“This is what I’m supposed to do,” Berni said, “and there’s nothing that can stop me from doing that.”
Berni said he felt on top of the world his senior season of football at Skyview in 2012 when he was named the Storm’s starting quarterback. The season before, the Storm came off a Class 4A state runner-up finish behind future Portland State three-year starter Kieran McDonagh. Skyview went 7-3 with the 5-foot-11 Berni, a second-team all-4A GSHL dual-threat quarterback.
The football path afterward was a rocky one, though. As a redshirt, his scholarship to Western Oregon was worth $3,000, and the culture, he said, didn’t make for a perfect fit. He left the Monmouth, Ore., campus almost as soon as he arrived in the fall of 2013.
Next stop: Iowa Western Community College, a member of the National Junior College Athletic Association, a place Berni describes athletics on campus as “like a university.” The Reivers won the NJCAA football title in 2014.
Berni spent one calendar year there, but never played a snap in a game. He did play in a spring game, and ran the scout-team offense.
One of his regrets, though, was not choosing a junior-college football program straight out of high school.
“That path would have been more beneficial,” he said.
But the way Berni talks about basketball now is a 180-degree change from his high school days.
A friend, Rian Bassett, played for Clark and head coach Alex Kirk in the 2014-15 season. Seeking a cost-saving option, Berni reached out to Kirk, he said, and decided to give basketball a shot.
Although Berni hasn’t played organized basketball since 2013 at Skyview — where he was a two-year starter — the rust hasn’t shown.
He’s started 17 of 18 games for Clark, leads the team in minutes played (28.4 per game) and draws the toughest assignment on game days: defending the opposing team’s most talented guard.
But what separates Berni is his competitive spirit, said interim coach Kevin Johnson, who took over the program when Kirk decided to step down for the remainder of the season in December.
“He’s not the most polished skill player there is,” Johnson said, “but he goes out there and competes. He’s willing to get dirty.”
Berni is shooting a team-best 39 percent from 3-point range (42 of 111). He was a perfect 6-for-6 in his college debut in Clark’s 89-74 loss to Pierce on Nov. 18.
Basketball — not football — might work out after all, Berni said. Football has taken a backseat, something he didn’t think he could say three years ago.
Or ever.
“I don’t know if I want to play football again after this because I’m having so much fun playing basketball,” he said. “I love basketball more than I love football now.
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.”
