Jeff "The Jet" Bergeron is still building Port Neches-Groves

When Jeff Joseph was looking for his first head coaching job in 2022, he often consulted his own Texas High School Football encyclopedia for guidance: his father, Gary Joseph.

Those who know Gary, a Hall of Fame coach who’s spent 44 years at Katy High School, know the stern tactician doesn’t get giddy over much except his grandkids, and maybe an extra-crisp offseason boot camp.  But when he heard his son had applied to Port Neches-Groves High School, his voice perked up as he remembered one of his childhood heroes.

“When I had applied for the job and first talked to my dad about it, the first person he brought up was, ‘Oh, Jeff ‘The Jet’ Bergeron!’” Joseph said.

Of the countless kids who have come through Texas High School Football, there are only a handful who stick in our collective memory, and rarely do we remember them strictly because of their play. They have to have a story behind them, too. Sometimes, that story is being a foundational player for a dynastic program. Other times, it’s because of an iconic nickname. But for Texas High School Football’s true trailblazers, such as Port Neches-Groves star Jeff “The Jet” Bergeron, it was both.

From 1970-72, Bergeron rushed for 3,928 yards and 67 touchdowns, a feat made more remarkable considering he never played a single playoff game. In those days, only the district champion made the playoffs, and Port Neches-Groves finished second every year. But, as for running backs, The Jet was second to none. He was the No.1-rated recruit in Texas, one of two backs to make the coveted All-American team – the other was future Heisman Trophy winner and NFL Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett. For 50 years, Bergeron held PNG’s single-game rushing yards record with 347 against rival Nederland in 1971.

That record may have been broken, but, as Jeff Joseph found out soon after his hiring, Jeff Bergeron still looms large in PNG’s athletic halls. Because, within a week of starting, Joseph was introduced to the school district’s Director of Facilities and Maintenance: Jeff Bergeron.

Bergeron is 72 years old now. After building PNG into one of the state’s most recognized brands over 50 years ago as a running back, he’s now preparing The Reservation to serve generations of kids in the future. Bergeron’s team is building a 120-yard covered turf field, which will finish in the next year. They’re also erecting a true visitors’ locker room for track and field meets and soccer games, so other schools don’t have to use the JV locker room anymore. Once that’s complete, Bergeron will redo the PNG weight room.

Every day is different for Bergeron, but the goal of leaving Port Neches-Groves better than he found it remains the same. Bergeron doesn’t like to talk about it much, but that day of leaving PNG is drawing nearer. Right now, he stays busy by captaining a group of trained plumbers, electricians, and HVAC techs, his new version of a football team. Their state championship is completing the covered field and weight room. Once that happens, the Jet will graduate again. 

“I’m gonna give myself about two more years,” Bergeron said. “When this is all done, I think I’m gonna hang up my cleats. Knowing me, I’m going to decide what else I’m gonna do for my next career.”

The truth is, Bergeron could’ve hung the cleats up back in 1973, never returning to Port Neches-Groves, and transcended into an urban legend. Instead, he returned to The Reservation for a second act, this time as a servant.

“It’s cool, because he probably doesn’t need to be doing what he’s doing,” Joseph said. “But at the same time he cares about our school district and our community. It’s important to him that things are done the right way. It’s the pride he has in PNG that keeps him doing what he’s doing.” 

If you cut Bergeron open, he’d bleed PNG purple. Which is why it might shock people that he grew up wanting to be a Port Arthur Yellowjacket. His grandparents lived in Port Arthur. In elementary school, they’d drop him off at the Yellowjacket football game by himself (different times, he says) and let the young boy’s mind run wild with daydreams of wearing a Port Arthur uniform. But then he went to a PNG-feeder middle school and found a home on The Reservation.

Before Bergeron’s sophomore year, Port Neches-Groves head coach Ken Watson and his staff went to a University of Texas coaching camp to study under the legendary Darrell K. Royal. When they returned for fall camp, they came back with a new offense that would change the trajectory of The Jet’s career: The Wishbone. The run-heavy scheme uses a full back and two tailbacks. Once the quarterback pitches the ball and rolls out, the runner usually has three lead blockers, in addition to all the offensive linemen. The offense allowed Bergeron’s speed to take flight. After yet another stellar game his sophomore year, Port Arthur newswriter Burt Darden dubbed Bergeron “The Jet.”

Jeff “The Jet” Bergeron was one of the figureheads in a swelling pride for high school football in the Golden Triangle. By Bergeron’s junior year, the first, sixth, and tenth-ranked teams in the state were all in the same district. And all the best programs were built off the backs of burgeoning stars running the ball. The All-State team had two running backs and a quarterback, all from the Port Arthur area (Bergeron, Port Arthur Lincoln legend Joe Washington Jr., and quarterback Larry Mayer from Port Arthur Jefferson). These high-scoring attacks, along with the fact that the nearest metro area was the relatively-sleepy Beaumont, combined to create a phenomenon around high school football, making it the main event in these tiny Gulf Coast towns. 

“It was nothing for us to have 14,000 people at a game back in the day,” Bergeron said. “We didn’t have the stadiums to hold those people, either. They were lined up on the track and everywhere else.”

And Bergeron gave them a show. As a junior in 1971, the Jet racked up 347 yards in the Mid-County Madness rivalry game against Nederland. Fearing he’d run for 600 yards, Coach Watson pulled Bergeron halfway through the third quarter. As Bergeron sat on the bench, basking in the soon-to-be win, photographers began taking pictures of him. Bergeron was confused, not knowing how many yards he’d had, but didn’t think much of it. After the game, his mother surprised him and another buddy as they were leaving the field house, rolling her car up to the facility door as he left.

“Oh, my God, there’s a problem,” Jeff thought.

“Do you know what you did tonight?” his mother called.

“Played a football game,” Jeff said.

“You rushed for about 350 yards,” his mother responded.

“Oh, OK!” Jeff said. “I’ll be home later tonight.”

It’s impossible to tell if any of the current players at PNG realize the man inspecting their fields and locker rooms is actually the greatest running back in school history. If they did find out, it’s not because Bergeron told them. Any braggadocio he had in him was drilled out long ago.

“My buddies, if you got notoriety, they would hammer you,” Bergeron said. “You wouldn’t want to say anything about what Bergeron did, because my buddies kept you humble. We’d rather spend our time on the river in an aluminum boat.”

Once, after another dominant win against Port Arthur Jefferson, Bergeron and his buddies were at Jack in the Box for a postgame meal. The PNG players saw some college folk in Port Arthur Jefferson regalia at the next booth. Bergeron’s back was facing them, and one of his friends asked the college kids if they went to the Jefferson vs PNG game that night. Sure did, they said.

“Well, you know that old Bergeron scored four touchdowns,” the PNG player said.

“Well, they just take care of him,” the college kid replied. “They run all the plays for him, he’s really not that good.” 

Bergeron didn’t turn around. In fact, he hardly reacted. But when the PNG players finished eating, the same friend who’d started the interaction got up, held the front door open, and called back toward the booth.

“Hey, Bergeron, come on,” he said.

“When he said that, those people at the table could’ve crawled underneath it,” Bergeron said.

It seems Bergeron has walked the line between living legend and anonymous football player his entire life. He’s served as PNG’s Director of Facilities and Maintenance without hardly a story for over a decade. He was also the No.1 recruit in Texas in 1973 but wasn’t recognized by his team’s archrival in a Jack in the Box. Maybe it’s because Bergeron is serious about his craft while not taking himself too seriously. When asked about being the No. 1 recruit in Texas in 1973, the year after College Football Hall of Famer Joe Washington Jr. in 1972 and the year before Pro Football Hall of Famer Earl Campbell in 1974, he has a quick, self-deprecating deadpan.

“I guess two out of three ain’t bad,” Bergeron said.

The Jet never fully took off in college. Bergeron bounced around three colleges before the Transfer Portal was in vogue: signing with the University of Houston, transferring to Stephen F. Austin so he could play right away, then ending his career at Lamar. That final season at Lamar in 1977, he rushed for 426 yards and three touchdowns. It was a respectable output, enough for the Seattle Seahawks to draft him, but not the numbers of the No.1 recruit in the state.

Bergeron played in a couple of different professional leagues, flashing that signature speed on special teams. After a couple years off, the New Jersey Generals in the inaugural USFL reached out to Bergeron asking him to come out to fall camp. Because he hadn’t sprinted for some time, Bergeron and his wife went out to the Port Neches-Groves track. She started timing his 40-yard dashes. After a couple runs shouting out his time, Bergeron looked at her incredulously, hands on hips, huffing for breath.

“Are you sure you’re hitting that thing right?” Bergeron said.

She was. And with that, Bergeron’s playing days were done. There are a lot of reasons his college career didn’t reach the same heights his high school days did. Some are his fault, some are others’. Some he will talk about, but most he won’t, not wanting to get people in trouble. Which is fine, because this story is not about what happened to Jeff Bergeron’s playing career 50 years ago, it’s about how Jeff Bergeron’s playing days set the foundation for his next 50 years of service.

“I’ve never regretted it,” Bergeron said. “I had friends that went on to play ball and did really well. But I’ve learned a lot from it, and I think it made me a better coach to say, ‘Hey, don’t make these mistakes.’ If I can grow from what I’ve learned and pass that on, it might keep them from making those same mistakes.”

Bergeron became a running backs coach at Port Neches-Groves under Butch Troy for four years, starting a construction business on the side. Back then, as today, he provided advice to any of the PNG athletes with Division I dreams who are willing to listen. Instead of going to a school because some alumni said he’d take care of you financially, go to a school that is motivated to improve your sport by investing in its resources. But, most importantly, go to a school where you can get a degree you’re proud of.

“Education is the real strength and power,” Bergeron said. “Most competitive athletes wind down in their late 20s or early 30s, but the things we learn and use last a lifetime. We should all be willing to learn until we take our last breath.”

This thirst for knowledge, for lived experience, for an outlet once his football career ended, drove Bergeron to work two jobs while coaching high school football. His kids were so dedicated to him that some would work for him over the summer, leaving their manual labor role at 3:00 p.m. to go work out. Eventually, Bergeron went into the construction business full-time once the money surpassed what he made at the school.

But he stayed in Port Neches so all of his kids could go to PNG High School, even serving for a couple of years on the school board. He and his son, Jeff Bergeron Jr., are both in the top six in school history for longest kickoff return (Jr. bested his Pops with a 95-yard kickoff return against Silsbee in 1998). As a young coach, hungry to climb the ladder no matter the place he had to go, he used to hear all the older staff members say if you had a kid in Port Neches-Groves, you’d be there until that kid graduated. Bergeron grew up in PNG himself, but he didn’t fully understand how special it was until he had children of his own.

“I could’ve gone years ago, in my 30s, to Houston, and probably been retired at 55 and never had to worry about money again,” Bergeron said. “But I wanted to raise my kids in an atmosphere I felt like was healthy for them. That’s why I stayed here in Port Neches.”

There are a lot of “could’ve”s in Jeff Bergeron’s story. Maybe he could’ve had a longer college career if he transferred to Oklahoma or LSU after his time at Houston ended. Maybe he could’ve made more money if he moved to Houston in his 30s. But he knows the Good Lord had a reason his story turned out as it did, and he’s provided reminders of why every time he watches the next generation of PNG Indians practice on the fields he maintains.

“PNG has always been part of my life,” Bergeron said. “I am honored to be an American, proud to be a Texan and blessed to be a PNG Indian. How many places can someone enjoy going to work every day and on most days have fun doing it. I am truly a blessed man.”

For Bergeron, blessed are those who live where their feet are. That’s why the only memento he has displayed from his playing career is an autograph from legendary NFL head coach Wade Phillips, who coached against Jeff the Jet when he was at West Orange-Stark. But even that autograph came years after the fact. There are no trophies, no game-worn jerseys, no newspaper clippings from the time when the Jet flew around the Golden Triangle. When this writer called him with the story idea, he quipped, ‘Man, you must be really looking for something to write about.’

“I’ve never displayed any of the honors I’ve had or anything like that,” Bergeron said. “They’re in the attic in boxes. I kind of have the opinion that everyone needs to take their turn. Some people have honor rooms and things like that. Of course, you want to be remembered. But you don’t want to use that as the reason you exist.”

He finds those reasons in the covered pavilion field and the weight room he’s building for this school district’s future, in giving back to the community that made him into the man he is today. Bergeron likes talking about his football career, but it’d be a travesty if that’s all he was remembered for. Because, in the Jet’s eyes, PNG is about to take off, and he wants to be known as part of this program’s future just as much as he was part of its past.

“PNGISD has always been a great district, but I believe we are about to be even better,” Bergeron said. “Our new Superintendent, Mrs. Julie Gauthier, will be a great leader and direct the district to new heights. I truly believe she will be the best superintendent in my lifetime. I appreciate her allowing me to represent the district in our bond process. She has assembled a great administration that will help us continue in that positive direction.”