Michael Jerome Bernard[1] (born November 8, 1948) is an American former basketball coach and player. He played college basketball at Kentucky State. He was selected in the 1970 NBA draft by the Cincinnati Royals.
Bernard studied political science at Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University) during the 1976–77 school year.[5]
Coaching career
Returning to Kentucky State, Bernard began his coaching career in 1974 as an assistant coach. After two seasons at Kentucky State, Bernard was an assistant coach at Norfolk State, then in NCAA Division II, from 1978 to 1984.[3]
In 1985, Bernard got his first head coaching position at North Carolina Central, a Division II school at the time.[6] Accumulating a 115–56 record, Bernard was head coach at North Carolina Central from 1985 to 1991. Bernard led the Eagles to a 28–4 record and NCAA Division II national championship in the 1988–89 season, for which he was named Division II Coach of the Year by Kodak.[3]
Bernard was then head coach at Norfolk State from 1991 to 1998, going 141–67 in seven seasons.[6] Under Bernard, Norfolk State made two deep runs in the NCAA Division II Tournament, qualifying for the Final Four in 1994 and Elite Eight in 1995.[3] Bernard's final season at Norfolk State was in 1997–98, when the team went 6–21 in the school's first season at the Division I level.[6]
From 1998 to 2002, Bernard was head coach at Division II Fayetteville State, going 65–44 in four seasons. However, in August 2002, the Fayetteville Observer reported that Bernard falsely claimed in his résumé to have completed a master's degree at Clark Atlanta, leading Fayetteville State to start an investigation.[5] On August 8, the day the Observer story was published, Fayetteville State decided to fire Bernard.[7]
Bernard became head coach at Shaw on September 9, 2002, days after the resignation of Joel Hopkins.[8]
He was an assistant coach at Delaware State under head coach Greg Jackson from 2006 to 2009.[2] Then from 2009 to 2012, he served as director of basketball operations on Jackson's staff.[2]
National champion
Postseason invitational champion
Conference regular season champion
Conference regular season and conference tournament champion
Division regular season champion
Division regular season and conference tournament champion
Conference tournament champion