A life in field hockey, resumed, for Bernardini

She has spent 38 years at George School, so one might imagine field hockey coach Nancy Zurn Bernardini had experienced just about everything.

But this year, this fall, is different for Bernardini, the school's girls' athletic director, who also coaches basketball and varsity lacrosse.

After taking seven years off, she has returned to coach the school's varsity field hockey team, reclaiming her post in a sport that has driven her life from the beginning.

She picked up field hockey in sixth grade at Abington Friends, the earliest age girls were allowed to officially join the team, but spent countless hours around the team when she was younger as she watched her four sisters play for the Kangaroos.

Bernardini was so good that she nearly made the U.S. Olympic field hockey team heading into the 1980 Games in Moscow, before she tore her ACL and MCL in December - "a total football injury," the doctors told her - the week before tryouts. (The United States wound up boycotting the Moscow Games.)

She left for Ursinus College in 1974, a school she said had "really great female pioneers of athletics coming out of the school" at the time.

As she neared graduation, her coach at Ursinus, Adele Boyd, told Bernardini about a job opening at George School. Boyd's friend, Anne LaDuke, a former U.S. national field hockey player herself, was the athletic director at George School.

Bernardini was hired as the assistant girls' athletic director and field hockey coach in 1978.

She was named the school's athletic director in 1993, and she continued to coach all three seasons.

The years bled together, and soon her children became George School students, and then they became George School graduates.

Her son, Michael, began playing basketball at Muhlenberg College, while her daughter, Lisa, shipped off to play soccer and lacrosse at Old Dominion.

"I gave up a lot of time during the years coaching, and my husband was great with the kids, but my kids were especially great," Bernardini said. "I think there were times that I thought about not coaching, because it takes a lot of time away from your family.

"But when I talked about it, my kids would always tell me - my son said, 'Mom, why would you do that? You love coaching, you're good at it. Keep doing it.' "

But in 2007, Michael and Lisa weren't around to persuade Bernardini to keep coaching, and that was the point.

She decided to step away from coaching field hockey, and she spent weekends in the fall traveling to Old Dominion to watch Lisa play soccer.

And then those years came and went, Bernardini cheering from the bleachers instead of stalking the sidelines, and the itch to coach returned.

So she did just that. She returned to her post as varsity field hockey coach this summer for her 31st season, in charge of a team that has "shown that they love hockey, and they're willing to work really hard," Bernardini said.

The Cougars lost their first game of the season to Pennington School before answering with a stronger performance against Conwell-Egan.

"I'm excited to be back out there," Bernardini said. "I've run with them a couple of times, I've done some of the stick work. It just starts to bring back some of those memories."

She certainly has plenty to get back to.