BRADENTON

The Bradenton Christian football team doesn’t have a coach on the field, but it may have the next best thing.

A coach’s son. Allan Gerber on the Panther sideline. Son Brett in the middle of the defense.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Brett said. “It’s really a blessing to be able to play for him. The expectations are a little higher, but they should be. I have to sort of act as the voice of the coaching staff in a lot of cases. In many ways, it’s the same as if he wasn’t my dad. He’s my coach when we’re on the field. I enjoy it.”

Brett isn’t merely the Panthers’ starting middle linebacker. He’s also their best player, with 97 tackles in four games. Opponents have double-teamed the 6-foot-3, 215 pounder. When that hasn’t worked, they’ve tried running the play away from him.

Still, the 16-year-old junior has maintained a nose for the football.

“He’s been very productive for us,” his dad said. In his ninth year at Bradenton Christian, Allan has coached Brett since the sixth grade, though Brett wasn’t allowed to play tackle football until the fifth.

Given his father’s background, it should have been expected Brett would adopt the sport. After a college career as a free safety at Trenton State College, Allan Gerber embraced a coach’s often nomadic life, with stops at the Virginia Military Institute, North Greenville University, Gardner-Webb University, Washington and Lee University, and North Carolina A&T.

“I sort of grew up in football and around the locker rooms,” Brett said. “The college players that my dad coached were my baby sitters and I was around it as long as I can remember. It’s a big deal in our family and it’s a big deal, especially in this area too.”

Dad freely admits his son, at 16, is a better player than he was at that age. But given the father-son dynamic, it’s logical to wonder whether Allan wears his coaching cap a little bit longer around Brett.

“We have to tread on a thin sheet of ice simply because it’s not fair to always be coached,” Allan said. “It’s not fair to him when we leave here to not be able to change hats.

“But at the end of the day, because it’s important for him to have success and to play at a high level, it really does never end. His mother does a great job of keeping score and keeping us in a sense of calm at home. We have a nice little set-up from the standpoint of when to unplug and when to re-plug.”

The younger Gerber is mature far beyond his years. Before the Panthers won their first game of the season last Friday, Brett admitted to a sense of frustration, but offered the refrain of a true team leader.

“You can’t go around pointing fingers,” he said, “you can only point a thumb and you got to say ‘how can I do my job better? How can I help my teammates and lift up everybody around me?’ That’s what I’m working on personally.”

Both Allan and his wife, Bethany, the director of enrichment at Bradenton Christian, have stressed academics, but with Brett, the results are off the charts.

His transcripts reflect nothing but A’s. He’s also a member of Mensa, the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world. To be a member, one must score worldwide in the 98th percentile or higher on an approved IQ test.

“It didn’t change my life or anything,” he said. “It’s cool to be able to be in that group. It was fun for me to be able to do that.”

Brett also scored a 39 on the Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test, given to incoming NFL players. The Giants’ Eli Manning recorded a 39. A perfect score is 50, accomplished only once, by former Bengal and Harvard graduate Pat McInally.

This summer, Brett attended football camps at Harvard and Yale. In the spring, South Florida offered him a scholarship. Though he’s considering pre-med, he is sure that no matter the college, football will be a part.

“That’s the one point that is definitely firm,” he said. “I know a pre-med major is going to be a whole lot more difficult than some others you can take.

“There are definitely some decisions to make. Over the next year and a half, I’ll have a lot on my mind. It’s going to be academics versus athletics and where I can do both and where can I have the best experience and leave the best legacy.”

At Bradenton Christian, Brett Gerber is doing just that.