Temple's Pierce sees bright future after tough past

BERNARD PIERCE doesn't like to bring himself back to those days when everything around him seemed to be collapsing. To the time in the courtroom when his teary eyes barely could look up at his mother, and back further, to when he balled his hand into a fist that one afternoon, momentarily staining a life he felt was spinning beyond control.

But it's part of the Temple tailback's life. It's what started the current path the gifted, 6-foot, 212-pound freshman is taking. He never thought about going to college, let alone being the nation's top freshman running back. His world was once living day-to-day.

Now look at him.

At 7-2, with seven wins in a row, Temple is enjoying a breakthrough season, and at its foundation is Pierce. He is third in the nation in rushing, with 1,211 yards. He's tied for ninth in the nation in scoring, with 14 touchdowns. He has, or will own, every freshman rushing record in Temple history. And if he stays healthy, conceivably every rushing and scoring mark by the time he's done.

But it always goes back to the journey for Pierce, before the cameras, microphones and klieg lights that await him after another amazing performance. Before the more than 300 members began flocking to the Bernard Pierce Facebook fan page. It goes back to the time when only two people waited for him, or even cared about him - his mother, Tammy Pierce, and grandmother, Ora Pierce.

"I remember, all right," he says. "How can I forget? Back then, that person who did those things isn't the same person I am today. People can change. I've changed. I had to change. If I didn't, who knows what would have happened to me. I wouldn't be here in college, playing football, I'll tell you that. Who I am now isn't who I was then."

Then, Bernard was a standout athlete at Lower Merion High School, but a young man filled with frustration and a short temper. He was a distraction in the classroom, belligerent, a bully, according to numerous Lower Merion sources. Many teachers at Lower Merion didn't have the tolerance to deal with him. Those who took the time to know him did, some Lower Merion administrators said.

Pierce says he did not have a good relationship with his father. Hayward Abney, who was killed in an auto accident last Father's Day, was a sporadic presence in Pierce's life. And Pierce says the crowd he hung with lived by the same credo he did - day-to-day, and who cares about the bigger picture?