Go right ahead and call it a comeback.
No one at St. Bernard’s or Foglight Entertainment and Wonderfilm Media will argue. Not even for a minute.
That’s kind of the point.
In “All In: Miracle at St. Bernard’s,” directors Gregg Backer and Evan Kanew balance two underdog stories and weave them together masterfully: that of the Bernardian football team looking to repeat as the most unlikely of state champions in 2019 and the school’s battle to remain afloat as Catholic schools throughout the state struggled with enrollment and increasing debt.

With the school on the brink of closing under mounting pressure from the Diocese of Worcester heading into the 2018-19 school year, St. Bernard’s administrators, teachers and parents came together to raise funds to keep the 100-year old institution open.
And while the threat of a closure loomed, the Bernardian football team aimed to defend its Division 8 title. A big task for any group, but this was a team of less than 30 players. Try finding another program that small that has any semblance of success.
The miracle inferred in the film’s title is two-fold and with both sides self-realized: the push to raise money and enrollment on one hand and the journey to raise a second championship banner on the other.
The 90-minute film will be released today on Apple/iTunes and Amazon and is advertised as “a true story of faith, family and football.”
It hits on all those things as it documents St. Bernard’s struggles to stay afloat both as an institution and a football program. And without spoiling much, there’s a happy ending on both ends.
“All In: Miracle at St. Bernard’s” does an admirable job of balancing both storylines. And while each of the angles are fairly well known around here, directors Gregg Backer and Evan Kanew dig deeper, with in-depth interviews adding insight into just how dire the situation at St. Bernard’s was.
With this year’s senior class starting as freshmen at the time focused on in the film, I’ve spoken to Bernardians head coach Tom Bingham multiple times about the journey those kids have been on. He brought it up following the team’s Division 7 championship game loss to West Boylston on Dec. 1, noting what a special group the Class of 2023 has been.
“This senior class, if you look at all they’ve been through, it’s pretty amazing that they’ve pushed the team back to (a title game),” Bingham said. “As freshmen, there was the threat of the school closing and then COVID hit and these kids never gave up.”

It’s a theme revisiting — and rightly so — time and time again throughout the documentary. From the elation of unveiling a championship banner from the 2018 to the crushing news just months later that the school faced being shut down, the Bernardians never wavered in their missions.
I was familiar with many of the straight facts covered in “All In.” I can’t lie and say there was much there in the way of revelations for me.
But what the filmmakers did a fantastic job of doing was getting the people whose story this is to open up. Watching former players explain the pressure they felt to perform and produce something positive for St. Bernard’s is both admirable and at times tough to watch; these were teenagers who felt the weight of the world on their shoulders at the time.
It wasn’t just the pressure of winning games. It was an unfair burden put on student-athletes who simply wanted to go to school and play football.
These former players come across as vulnerable and open, while also seeming battle-tested and unafraid. They’re candid and honest, recounting the highs and lows of the 2019 season and the school year that accompanied it.
And like the parents and administrators who came together — the Pinard and Boissoneau families, Nathan Bilotta, Dean of Students Paul Constantino, Principal Linda Anderson and Bingham among them — to push the school toward its fundraising goals, the students at the school faced the challenge head-on.
Unfair for everyone involved, perhaps, but that’s life. It’s not always fair or easy.
But the St. Bernard’s community never gave up on what it valued and came out stronger, united because of those challenges and efforts.
A real-life underdog story, “All In: Miracle at St. Bernard’s” captures the spirit and determination of a school that was willing to bet on itself and came out a winner — on multiple fronts.