VALRICO, FL --
“My mom, she always told me education is the key to life and if you want to be able to succeed, you have to fight for it,” Ashley Bernard said.
Ashley Bernard’s battle begins at 4:30 a.m.
This Leto High junior starts every school morning by loading up the family car with her mom and siblings. It’s still dark outside when they begin a road trip from their Valrico home to the kids day care, then to Ashley’s mom’s college in Tampa where she attends classes and then finally Leto. By the time Ashley’s classmates begin their school day, she’s already been up for four hours.
"To carry out the day like I'm not tired, I'm not fatigued, I'm just getting ready to go and still can be the social butterfly and yet, still get straight A’s? That’s insane,” Leto flag football head coach Hugh Dessources said. “I’m gonna be honest with you, that’s insane.”
Ashley attends Leto for their collegiate academy where she is dual-enrolled at Hillsborough Community College. When she gets her high school diploma a year early in June, she’ll also have earned her Associates Degree. She endures a long road trip just to get to school and crams in a lot classwork while also excelling on the flag football field.
"She'll be the one that's like, hey. let's get this drill, we're going to do it the best, we're going to get this and I want you to go out there and try your hardest,” Dessources said. “So, I don't have to do that. I don't have to be the hype man."
Where does someone who gets up while it’s still dark outside find the energy?
“To be quite honest, I don’t know. Joining the flag football team, they brought out a spark in me I didn’t even know I had.”
Flag football provides Ashley with an outlet to just be a kid. For someone who is more adult than her 16 years suggests, the football field is Ashley’s playground.
“The thrill of it, the catching the ball, running and then being able to have a team and a family,” she said.
This sisterhood means everything to Ashley. It’s a bond that helps keep her going.
“It takes a special person to be able to connect to different personalities, no matter who they are or where they’re from or what their background is,” Dessources said, “and that’s something that she’s been capable of doing since the moment she stepped on this team as a freshman.”
Ashley’s often asked why does she do it? Why put in the long days? Because she knows she’s creating memories for a lifetime.
“That’s going to be a story she can tell her kids one day whenever they say, hey, I can’t do this, she can just go ahead and just whip out the grandma stunt and be like, well when I was your age,” Dessources said. “It’s going to actually prepare her far beyond these hallways and this football field.”