A Coaching Odyssey
January 29, 2009 12:24 PM | General
January 29, 2009
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - West Virginia University prides itself on change – innovation, expansion, growth – that propels the school to the forefront of the nation’s importance and to the top of the collegiate ranks.
The WVU Athletic Department is no different. During the last 35 years, the department has seen relatively new programs rise to great heights; storied squads achieve accolades previously out of reach and continued development and success for all 16 varsity teams.
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| Linda Burdette watches her team warm up before a meet at the WVU Coliseum earlier this year.
All-Pro Photography Dale Sparks photo |
The WVU gymnastics team has progressed through a fusion between change and consistency, growth and stability, success … and more success. The reason? Coach Linda Burdette – a stalwart and pioneer that has seen the program flourish and develop in to one of the nation’s most respected during her 35 years of leadership.
In the midst of her 35th season at the helm of the Mountaineers, Burdette can not help but reflect on the various teams, talented athletes and reliable assistants she has worked with over the years.
Burdette understands the magnitude associated with her 35 years at WVU - though she can not begin to explain where the months and years have gone, she knows that there have been many. Therefore, she offers a disclaimer before recounting any stories – “You must,” she began, with a most-serious look in her eyes, “tell everyone that I started coaching at the age of 10!”
And as the smile breaks out on her face, one can easily see how Burdette has managed to maintain success as the familiar and welcoming face of WVU Gymnastics.
Current assistant coach Jason Butts says that those types of optimistic, funny comments typify the best of Burdette.
“Linda is a great, positive motivator,” Butts said. “The atmosphere in the gym is always positive. She brightens a room as soon as she walks in. It doesn’t matter if it’s a national coaches meeting, or an office at the Puskar Center. I would love to have that ability – the most I can do is watch and learn.”
A WVU alum, Burdette inherited the program in 1975 after a one-year stint at Fairmont State. The WVU gymnastics team had just completed its first season of competition, joining basketball and tennis as the school’s first three women’s varsity sports. Burdette said that she, along with tennis coach Martha Thorn and basketball coach Kittie Blackmore, experienced many growing pains through those first few years.
“When I stop to think about those first few years, I laugh, because everybody today thinks women playing sports is no big deal – it’s like second nature,” Burdette said, indeed laughing at the memory. “But I remember going through the process. It was a long, hard process to get to where we are today. Trust me, there will never be a day I take anything for granted.”
Though faced with financial and logistical challenges that plague most infant programs, Burdette’s teams began to flourish. Three of her first five seasons finished with winning records.
“I’ve often said that the reason we probably reached success the quickest of the first three WVU women’s varsity sports teams is because we did not have other gymnastics teams in West Virginia to compete against. We were forced to compete out of state – tennis and basketball, their regular competition was in-state.
“We had to go to Penn State, who was a perennial national champion, Clarion, annually ranked in the Top 5, and Ohio State. We were thrown out in to the hotbed of collegiate gymnastics, which just happened to be within driving distance of WVU. I think we were able to recruit girls that weren’t recruited by these top schools, because they knew that if they weren’t competing for the Penn States and Clarions, they could compete against them, and perhaps advance past them.”
The Mountaineers finally exploded on to the national scene in 1982, when the team won its first EAIAW Regional Championships and finished third at the AIAW National Championships. The squad, which finished the season at 18-7, was led by freshman Shari Retton, who became WVU’s first female All-American, as she captured the first team honor on vault, uneven bars, floor and all-around. Burdette was also recognized as the regional AIAW Coach of the Year. The finish is still a program-best.
The surprising standing at the national championships prompts another story that illustrates the extensive changes surrounding women in sports through the decades.
“I coached a pretty good team that season, and as the year progressed, we got better and better,” Burdette recalled. “Despite our growing success, I would always joke and say, ‘I can’t tell you when we have meets because it’s confidential.’ Our schedule never appeared in the paper. And when there was a story, it was always so obscure and in the corner of the paper.
“Thankfully, the coverage has been better for a long time. But when we took third at the national championships, there was not an article, just a little summary. That wasn’t just at West Virginia University – that was the way society was back in those days. It took time. It took time.”
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| Linda Burdette has coached the women's gymnastics program at WVU since 1975.
WVU Sports Communications photo |
Following its rise to national relevance, WVU began its affiliation with NCAA regional and championship competition in 1983. The next 13 years saw Burdette’s squads go 244-102-2 and make an appearance at each NCAA Regional Championships. WVU won its first Atlantic 10 Championships in 1992, and followed that with three additional titles in consecutive years. Burdette coached her second and third All-Americans, as Lajuanda Moody earned a second team honor in 1994, and Kristin Quackenbush earned second team honors in 1994 and a second team honor in 1995. Quackenbush, the 1997 National Collegiate Gymnast of the Year, would conclude her celebrated WVU career with three more All-America honors. Additionally, the Mountaineers made their first appearance at the NCAA Championships following a third-place finish at the 1995 NCAA Southeast Regional Championships. For her efforts, Burdette was named the Southeast Regional Coach of the Year.
The following seasons brought change to the Mountaineers’ surroundings, yet the team maintained the new lofty standards it now set for itself.
Burdette was the driving force behind the formation of the Eastern Atlantic Gymnastics League (EAGL). WVU continued to excel during the conference’s inaugural season, going 17-9 and winning the first EAGL Championships, held at the WVU Coliseum. Burdette was also named the first EAGL Coach of the Year.
“It was exciting to be able to establish the EAGL Championships,” Burdette said. “It was quite a memorable moment, to go through the whole process with each individual school and the other conferences.”
After another EAGL Championships title in 1997, and an additional trip to the NCAA Southeast Regional Championships, change again confronted the Mountaineers – this time, in the form of a new practice facility.
Completed in 1997, Cary Gym, a $1.5 million, 12,000 square-foot gymnastics training center, was designed exclusively for the use of Mountaineer gymnastics. Burdette recalls many anxious months before the gym’s opening.
“From the beginning, I was active in the planning for Cary Gym,” Burdette explained. “I saw all of the paper work; I watched the construction crew break ground. But I kept waiting. I would go out in to the parking lot, and think, ‘OK, they could still change this in to a basketball court.’
“Then, when the holes for the landing pits were finally in place, I was elated. I thought, ‘This is it! They can’t go back now! This is really our gym.’ I never thought the gym looked big enough until the first time I finally walked in to the building. I came inside and just let out a sigh and said, ‘Wow.’ We were home.”
The last 11 seasons have been fruitful for Burdette and the Mountaineers. All winning seasons, Burdette’s teams have won four more EAGL Championships, participated in 10 NCAA Regional Championships and two NCAA Championships. Burdette guided an additional two student-athletes to All-American honors – Kristen Macrie (2000) and Janáe Cox (2007) – and earned the 1998 and 2001 EAGL Coach of the Year honors.
Cox, a volunteer assistant with the Mountaineers last season and a current coach at Southern Indiana Gymnastics School, said that the success she has achieved following her competitive days at WVU is a direct reflection on Burdette’s coaching technique.
“The best thing about Linda is that she cares just as much about her gymnasts as people as she cares about them as athletes,” Cox said. “That was always comforting. She wants her gymnasts to also be successful outside of the gym.
“She was always a mother figure in the gym and a calming force. Linda had a good way of helping me see things in a different perspective. She was always able to do that. You knew that if she grabbed you by the hands, you were in for a mom talk.”
Now in the middle of her 35th season at WVU, with a team that, just last March, won the program’s sixth EAGL Championships, Burdette does not struggle to say why she thinks she’s been able find a home in Morgantown.
“I think I’ve managed to coach at WVU so long because I truly love coaching today as much as I ever have,” Burdette said, gazing out in to Cary Gym as three of her athletes begin their daily warm-ups. “I have been fortunate to have wonderful assistant coaches. I’ve been fortunate to have a great staff and a great support staff. You can’t do it alone, trust me, and you can’t be a micro-manager and survive. You have to let things go and not bring them in to the gym. I’m very fortunate.”
And though she brushes off the reminder as soon as it is mentioned, Burdette enters Saturday’s quad-meet at the Coliseum one victory shy of 600 for her career. She is the only WVU coach to earn such an impressive win total with a Mountaineer team.
“Win-loss in gymnastics is not important,” said Burdette. “When someone asks me what my record is, I have no idea. Yes, it’s a wonderful benchmark – I guess that means I’ve done something right. I always joke, if you’ve been at a place as long as I have, you better have won!”
No doubt the victories will continue to pile up for Burdette, for it seems that her staff and athletes work hard to win for her.
“Linda runs her program like a family,” Butts explained. “You come to it, whether you are an athlete or a coach, and you are instantly part of this unit and you have all of this support. She’s just straight-forward, tells you what she wants, and you all just march in the same direction to get there. I love that part of coaching with her.”
Cox said that Burdette’s devotion to the program fueled her to constantly perform well.
“You always knew that she loved the program and she loved WVU,” Cox said. “That’s why you always want to do well – you want to do well for her. It helps you work harder because you want to be successful for her.”
“Coach Burdette is the reason I came to West Virginia,” current Mountaineer Amy Bieski added. “I don’t know how she’s coached for 35 years, I really don’t. She’s such an awesome lady. She just knows what to say to motivate her gymnasts to do well.”
While Bieski acknowledges several times that Burdette’s hard work and effort has built the WVU gymnastics program in to the success it is today, Cox eloquently surmises the effect Burdette has had on the national gymnastics landscape over the last 35 years.
“It’s crazy to see where she’s taken the program,” Cox said. “She knows everyone. In airports, someone knows her. In Morgantown, everyone can identify with her. Alumni come back to meets to not only see the team, but to also see Linda. It’s really cool to see where she’s taken the program and how much respect she has in the gymnastics community and in Morgantown.”
