Cierra Burdick has performed basketball everywhere in the world with among the most legendary groups within the sport. Now she’s including “Olympian” to her spectacular resume. The #ENDALZ Athlete goes to the 2024 Summer time Paris Olympics to signify the USA in ladies’s 3×3 basketball.
“After the time, funding and work that’s been put in over the past decade, that is sort of the top of all of it. It’s the explanation why you’re employed so exhausting as an athlete,” she says. “This shall be one thing that I cherish for the remainder of my life. It’s such an honor.”
The Charlotte, North Carolina, native brings a wealth of expertise to Crew USA. Burdick spent her summers off from skilled groups enjoying 3×3 and gained two FIBA 3×3 World Cup gold medals. Whereas the street to Paris hasn’t all the time been simple, she realized priceless classes in perseverance and management from her grandmother, Jane Burdick, and her former coach, Pat Summitt — each of whom she misplaced to Alzheimer’s.
“They’re a big a part of my success as an athlete, but additionally as a human being as a result of they taught me so many classes, like the way to carry myself, the way to lead and the way to love,” she says.
Main by instance
When Burdick was 5 years previous, she introduced that she would play basketball in school. In 2011, that dream turned a actuality when she dedicated to the College of Tennessee with Summitt — one of many winningest NCAA basketball coaches of all time. Burdick says that becoming a member of the crew was a “blessing,” and Summit made a lifelong affect on the younger participant.
“The largest factor I realized from Pat was her humility,” she says. “The way in which that she spoke to the president of the USA was the identical means she was going to talk to the workers who cleaned up our enviornment after video games. That was simply how she carried herself each single day.”
When Summitt shared her Alzheimer’s prognosis, the Woman Volunteers rallied to help their coach, who was a mom determine to lots of the gamers. “She publicly introduced that she had been identified with Alzheimer’s my freshman yr. It’s unhappy as a result of I did not get to have Pat all 4 years,” Burdick says.
In 2016, Burdick was enjoying for the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream when she heard that Summitt’s well being was declining. She instantly flew to Knoxville, Tennessee, to say goodbye to her former coach with different Woman Volunteer gamers and alumni.
“I am simply so grateful that I had my Woman Vols household round me as a result of I could not think about going by means of all of that with out them,” Burdick says. “So many Woman Vols had been there from totally different many years. It was a testomony to the sisterhood that Pat constructed. It did not matter when you performed within the 80s, the 90s or the 2000s, all of us wished to be there to have fun her life and to share her final moments along with her.”
Throughout her go to to Knoxville, Burdick was lower from the Dream. Whereas she was devastated by the information, there was a silver lining. “Perhaps it was a blessing that I received waived. I went on to host camps in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia and had the honour of elevating cash for Alzheimer’s care, help and analysis,” says Burdick. “Hundreds of {dollars} had been donated on Pat’s behalf that I would not have been in a position to elevate if I hadn’t been waived from the crew.”
A legacy of affection
All through the ups and downs of Burdick’s basketball profession, one factor remained sure: the unwavering help of her household. Raised by a single mom, her grandparents performed a pivotal position in her life. Whether or not it was a recreation on the native YMCA or a packed enviornment on the College of Tennessee, Jane was one in all her greatest followers on and off the courtroom.
“My nana was unimaginable. I do not assume I ever heard her say something damaging about anyone my total life, she was only a gem of a human being,” says Burdick. “She and my mother traveled all over the place to observe me play — she had a pocket book the place she’d preserve my stats along with her little mechanical pencil. Nana got here to each recreation and event she may, from Charlotte to San Francisco.”
The whole lot modified when Jane was identified with Alzheimer’s in 2019. Burdick was heartbroken to observe one other liked one face the illness. “Pat is the one who launched me to Alzheimer’s — earlier than then, I did not even know what it was,” Burdick says. “After which my nana was identified. It is only a brutal illness, and also you sort of really feel cheated. I had my nana till 2023, however I began dropping her in 2019. I slowly however absolutely noticed her develop into a shadow of herself.”
Burdick realized she couldn’t undergo this expertise alone, and she or he sought assist to course of the extreme feelings that accompanied the lack of her grandmother.
“When you find yourself going by means of Alzheimer’s with a liked one, it is a fixed curler coaster and also you’re dropping them daily,” she says. “Do not be afraid to get the help you want — for me, it was going to remedy, however there are help teams, too.”
Competing for gold
As Burdick prepares for her first Olympic look, she’s centered on bringing house a win for Crew USA in ladies’s 3×3, and she or he plans to savor each second. “We need to exit and carry out as greatest as we will to deliver house the gold, but additionally take pleasure in it alongside the way in which. It is a once-in-a-lifetime alternative,” she says.
The journey to Paris is stuffed with bittersweet feelings. She’ll have a big cheering part stuffed with household and buddies, together with her mother, Lisa, and brother, CJ. Whereas Burdick is grateful to have a powerful help system as she competes on the worldwide stage, she misses her grandmother.
“After I received the information that I made the Olympic crew it was such a joyful second, after which I received within the automobile to move house and all I wished to do was name my nana and papa. I simply broke down in tears,” she says. “However my nana has the very best seat in the home now and I do know she’s with me alongside the way in which. I attempt to discover peace in that, however she’s undoubtedly missed each single day.”
It doesn’t matter what occurs in Paris, Jane and Summitt’s legacies reside on by means of Burdick as she follows her ardour for basketball and advances the combat towards Alzheimer’s as an #ENDALZ Athlete.
“I need to honor my nana and Pat to maintain their legacy going and to lift consciousness,” she says. “The extra consciousness we elevate and the extra funding we get will assist make progress find a treatment or options to assist sluggish the illness.”
