CONTRIBUTED BY
AU ATHLETICS / BY JEFF
SHEARER, SENIOR WRITER
AUBURN —
To Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl, his father, Bernie Pearl, will always be “the real BP.”
“He never met a stranger,” Bruce said. “My little personality is nothing compared to the real BP.”
Bernie passed away Wednesday after a brief illness at the age of 88. The Pearl family will honor its patriarch at a memorial service at Schlossberg Family’s Chapel on the Hill in Boston.
Married for 66 years, Bernie modeled a work ethic that would lead his son to become one of college basketball’s winningest coaches.
“A really good person,” Bruce said. “Loved his family first, loved his country, was a really hard worker. My dad worked six days a week his entire career to make sure the family had everything we needed.”
Bernie was 10 years old in 1945 when World War II ended and the full extent of the Holocaust’s horrors was discovered.
“He loved his Jewish heritage,” Bruce said. “It broke his heart knowing what happened in the Holocaust; it scarred my dad forever, having lost family. He wore it on his sleeve like he had a number carved on his forearm.”
Bruce grew up in a home that cheered passionately for New England’s teams: the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins.
“Daddy was a huge Boston sports fan,” Brice said. “Anything Boston. Born and raised there, went to Northeastern University. He loved Boston and hated all the New York teams.”
Despite that lifelong allegiance, one of Bernie’s last requests to his son involved a sports team located 1,200 miles from Boston.
“He asked, ‘Do you think the people in Auburn would mind if I got buried in an Auburn jersey even though I didn’t go to school there?’” Bruce said. “He was a loyal guy. He was grateful to Auburn for giving our whole family the opportunity to lead this basketball program. He watched or listened to every single game.”
The bond between father and son never lessened.
“I spoke to my dad every single day for the last four or five years of his life,” Bruce said. “He was my best friend and he was my biggest fan, unabashedly.”