Florida Gators: Becky Burleigh And A Damn Good Goodbye
I don’t know a lick about soccer.
Admittedly, as a sports editor, when a high school soccer game comes across the calendar, I typically delegate it to another writer.
How hard is it to kick around a checkered ball and shoot it into a 24-foot by 8-foot goal? Seems easy enough, but I really don’t know. And is it offsides or offside? Regardless, isn’t that a football, err, American football term?
My ignorance when it comes to soccer is glaring. I’m ashamed of it, truthfully.
But this much I do know: Any coach who maintains a head coaching job at the University of Florida for 26 seasons must be damn good at his or her job.
Becky Burleigh is damn good at her job. But all damn good things come to an end.
Florida’s longtime soccer coach announced her plans to retire following the 2021 spring soccer season on Saturday.
Hired in 1994 at 26 years old, the 53-year-old pioneer has served as the only coach to ever pace the sideline for Florida soccer.
When Burleigh came to Gainesville, she was fresh off a five-year stint at Berry College in Georgia where she coached players her same age. At Berry, Burleigh amassed a record of 82-23-6 and helped the Vikings to two NAIA national championships in 1990 and 1993.
After a nationwide search, the young, Florida native accepted Jeremy Foley’s offer to take the helm of a program that didn’t even exist yet.
And with as much grace as a 26-year-old could muster, Burleigh built the Gators soccer program from the ground up.
When Burleigh signed her contract, a soccer stadium couldn’t be found on the University of Florida campus. In fact, it wasn’t until over seven months later that construction at the Percy Beard Track and Field Stadium began to accommodate a soccer field.
Nonetheless, Burleigh pieced together a 31-player roster after a national search for the best prospects, in addition to open tryouts for UF students.
“It is going to be a big challenge, trying to help our players improve individually, and helping them come together as a team,” Burleigh said ahead of the inaugural season, according to the 1995 media guide. “Most teams tend to have five or six new players a season, compared to the 30 new players we have on our roster this year.”
Those same players that took the risk on a then-nonexistent program, quickly set a high bar for Florida soccer.
In the inaugural season, the Gators posted a record of 14-4-2 (6-1-2, SEC). In the 1996-97 season, the Gators went 20-3-1, and posted a perfect conference record of 11-0. Florida would go on to win its first ever SEC championship, which was quite the milestone for the two-year old program.
Burleigh’s first conference title in 1996-97 sparked a six-year period that saw the Gators run the table in the SEC. It also marked Burleigh’s first Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year recognition – her first of four.
The 1998-99 season for the Gators marked a milestone.
Those who joined the program during its inaugural season were now seniors. And though they had exceeded every expectation that anyone could have for a toddler-aged program, they understood that they had one year remaining to reach the goal Burleigh put before them the moment they stepped foot on campus.
“The very first class we recruited, we told them to look around at all the success of the other Florida programs,” Burleigh said, according to the 1998 media guide. “We told them that they would be competing for a national championship by the time they were seniors and now that has sort of come to fruition.”
Competing for a national championship that early in program history is one thing to hang your hat on. But winning a national title is in its own realm of accomplishments.
Following an 18-1 regular season campaign, with their only loss coming to the University of North Carolina in a 1-2 overtime defeat, the Gators went on to secure their third consecutive SEC title before making their first ever appearance in the College Cup.
Through the College Cup bracket, the Gators gave up just two goals through five games, including the national championship contest where they pitched a shut out to the Tar Heels, avenging their only loss of the season and capturing the program’s first and only national title.
For Becky Burleigh, the saying, “humble beginnings” was overrated.
There was nothing humble in the early years of Florida’s soccer program.
Burleigh and the Gators’ early successes paved the way for a distinguishable soccer program out of Gainesville, Florida. In a quarter of a century, the Gators have appeared in 22 NCAA Tournaments, 14 SEC regular season titles and 12 SEC tournament titles.
Five hundred and nine times in her coaching career, Burleigh has waltzed into the winning locker room. Burleigh’s wins give her the distinction of being just the second female in NCAA soccer history of tallying over 500 wins. Burleigh also holds the second-most wins amongst Division I active coaches.
To reiterate, I really don’t know much about soccer (I hear they call the field the “pitch”?... weird).
But it doesn’t take a soccer enthusiast to recognize how improbable of feats Burleigh has accomplished in her time in Gainesville – let alone at the pace she accomplished them. And it certainly doesn’t take a soccer enthusiast to appreciate what Burleigh has done for the university as a whole. All one needs to be to do that is a Gators fan.
I’ve never been to a Florida Gators soccer game. But I plan to go to one as the Gators finish their 2020-21 season.
I won’t know what’s going on. But I will know that I’ll be watching a legacy-of-a-woman do a damn good job for one of the very last times.
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