Santa Clara University

After Vern Sterling left the military he earned a football scholarship to Santa Clara. As guard he lead the team to a number #15 ranking on the nation’s end of season AP Poll in 1949. Sterling was a member of the 1950 team that beat Bear Bryant's Kentucky Wild Cats in the Orange Bowl. He was also selected as a First-Team player for the 1949 All-Pacific Coast Conference. Sterling went on to work for his former coach, Len Casanova, as an assistant coach at Oregon.