On September 13, the Berkeley High School varsity women’s water polo team took on Bishop O’Dowd High School.  In the first half of the game, the teams seemed very evenly matched.

Brianna Smyth, a senior in Academic Choice, had never even heard of water polo before she got to Berkeley High School. When her close friend Krithi De Souza, Class of ‘22 graduate and last year’s captain, recommended she try it, she did.

On August 24, the Berkeley High School varsity girls volleyball team took on the Deer Valley Wolverines in the first game of their 2022 season. BHS came out on top, winning the game in straight sets.  Early in the first set, neither team was able to get a significant lead.

The journey of attending Berkeley High School as a student, diving into a lifetime of sports, and becoming an alum coach is one that is profoundly rewarding.

The Berkeley High School Yellowjackets went up against the Miramonte Matadors on Friday, August 26. Per the game’s blackout theme, students arrived dressed in all black to show their Yellowjacket pride.  BHS played an amazing first two quarters with “stout defense and explosive offense,” according to head coach David Perry.

The spark of a rivalry isn’t always clear. Berkeley High School holds varied team rivalries specific to different BHS sports, and umbrella rivalries agreed upon by the wider school community.

Mason Mullen, a junior at Berkeley High School, was encouraged to start competing in track and cross country by his mother, who competed in college and qualified for the Olympic trials.

Football To gear up for the fall season, Berkeley High School alumni and former football player, Coach David Perry, has newly joined the BHS coaching staff and has been prepping the football team since June 12.

When Sienna Prak-Perry first began playing lacrosse in sixth grade, she was one of few players of Asian and Black descent on her team. At that age, she believed that she was an outsider in the Berkeley Bear Lacrosse community.

Berkeley High School’s girls varsity softball team took on Bishop O’Dowd High School on the evening of May 12. The match concluded with O’Dowd winning 3-0 against BHS, who put up a good defense, but didn’t counterattack offensively.

On April 24, for the first time since the pandemic shut down athletics, the Berkeley High School crew team was able to compete in the Scholastic Regionals against fellow Bay Area high schools.

Shortly after World War II, something new was introduced to the American mainstream: martial arts. With high value placed on tradition and discipline within these ancient practices, maintaining heritage while moving to the US proved difficult.

For Berkeley High School athletes, chasing the dream of collegiate sports takes hard work and perseverance.  “It’s been really tough, but I’ve had people that are with me along the way [and have] helped me and pushed me through challenges,” said Chase McFarland, a senior in Academic Choice, when describing his journey of

Since 2014, the dragon boats of the East Bay Rough Riders, a youth dragon boating team home to students from Berkeley High School and El Cerrito High School, have flitted across the iridescent water of the Berkeley Marina.

Benjamin Nathan, a Berkeley High School wrestling coach and 11th grade math teacher, attended North Springs High in Atlanta, Georgia. Nathan played on his school’s wrestling and tennis teams for all four years and participated in football as well.

“The first time I went in a kayak was on a small, calm lake with my dad and brother,” said Haley Goetting, a Berkeley High School senior. “We were just paddling around and shooting each other with water guns.

Luca McKerley Coronado is a senior in Berkeley International High School on the boys varsity baseball team. McKerley Coronado started playing baseball at four, inspired by his father and grandfather.