Taylor Burke again is SportsInk.com Athlete of the Year
MEDINA, Ohio – Jeff Harrison has been athletic director at Medina High School for two years and he admits to becoming “spoiled” watching an athlete the caliber of Taylor Burke.
“You have to understand this isn’t the norm,” Harrison said. “You are watching one of the best female athletes in the state of Ohio.”
Headed to the University of Florida and Medina’s only three-sport letter winner in 2010-11, Burke is the SportsInk.com Female Athlete of the Year for a second straight time after yet another off-the-chart year of soccer, basketball and track & field.
“I believe Taylor is the best athlete Medina County has seen, certainly on the female side,” Medina assistant track coach Phil Brewer said. “Maybe the best we’ve seen in northern Ohio or even Ohio.”
A soccer state champion as a junior, Ms. Ohio in soccer as a senior and one of three goalkeepers selected on the Parade All-America Team, her soccer resume by itself is extensive.
A senior basketball standout, she averaged nearly a double-double (points and rebounds) and helped lead coach Chris Hassinger’s Bees (18-4, 9-1) to their first conference championship in hoops since 1996.
Brewer said several Mid-American Conference universities had expressed interest in Burke for basketball “in what you might consider her hobby sport.”
She capped her high school athletic career on June 4 at the OHSAA state track & field meet, by clearing a meet, state and stadium record of 6 feet, 1 ¼ inches in high jump. It marked her third state title outdoors after having won two indoor national championships.
“She was never more ‘on’ in her career than she was on that day at the state meet,” Brewer said. “She finds a way to have a little bit extra in the tank when she needs it.”
Brewer marveled at Burke’s ability to clear 6-0 and then to refocus and clear 6-01.25.
“Definitely the best birthday gift ever,” Burke said that day at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium. “It’s my 18th birthday. I won states, PR’d and tied a state record. I don’t think I can ask for anything more.”
Her winning height actually broke the state record and would have tied her for this years NCAA Division I championship.
“She is one of the most clutch athletes I’ve ever been around,” said Harrison, a former collegiate athlete and a high school athletic director of 11 years.
Brewer related the story of for the first time watching Burke play soccer. It was the 2009 state semifinals and the Bees were pitted against perennial power Walsh Jesuit at Rocky River.
Burke made 14 saves, including several of the spectacular variety, in a 1-0 Medina upset win. The Bees eventually won the state title.
“I picked a good one,” Brewer said. “Taylor was unbelievable.”
She did not allow a goal in sectional, district, regional or state tournament play (eigth matches). Her string of 15 straight shutouts included the first three matches of 2010.
Coach Doug Coreno’s Medina girls soccer team came into the 2010 season ranked No. 1 in the nation and stayed there for a month, getting off to a 9-0-0 start. The Bees finished 13-3-3.
Burke overcame tendonitis in her knee during her junior year. Medina’s coaches were acutely aware of the situation and were sensitive not to “wear her down,” said Brewer.
“I don’t think anybody would have second guessed her choice, if she had decided not to play basketball her senior year,” Harrison said. “But she enjoyed being around the other girls on the team too much.
“She is the ultimate competitor.”
Brewer said her high-jump training was scaled back for her junior year and that she enjoyed a “relatively injury free senior year.”
She intends to be a goalkeeper in the fall and a high jumper in the spring for the Florida Gators. It will be an athletic challenge few would undertake, but if anyone is up to the task, it’s Taylor Burke.
But remarkable athleticism is only a part of what makes this Medina sports legend a champion in life.
A member of the National Honor Society with a 3.6 GPA, Burke is cherished by her teammates. Many have expressed that sentiment time and again.
“She’s the best ever,” basketball teammate Dev King recently told the Medina County Gazette. “She’s good at everything. She’s good at corn hole, even. You always want Taylor Burke to be your partner when you’re competing at something.”
In April of this year, when freshman high jumper Leah Svoboda cleared her PR of 5-1 against Brunswick, Burke, realizing the Bees were assured of first and second place, stopped jumping and allowed Svoboda to garner first place.
It was an act of kindess not lost on Leahs mother, Andrea.
“I had tears in my eyes, it was just so sweet,” Andrea Svoboda told the Akron Beacon Journal. “I was so touched. Taylor truly is a role model.”
Burke had a great influence on Medinas other state-caliber performers as well.
“She herself is a motivation when she talks to you about what she thinks of during and before she jumps,” Medina state pole-vault champion Alex Wasik said. “All of it is just really motivational.”
That is the prevailing notion whenever her name surfaces.
“For as good as an athlete as Taylor is, she’s an even better person,” Harrison said. “She always conducted herself in a first-class manner. There was never a moment when I thought, ‘OK. This will be a learning experience.’
“Her mom and dad deserve a lot of credit for a tremendous job of parenting.”
Brewer echoed Harrison’s observation.
“She’d be a joy to work with if she was even half the athlete,” Brewer said. “She is a terrific young lady.”
And for a high school sports website covering 46 high schools over three counties, Taylor Burke already has set a standard of excellence as our first two-time SportsInk.com Athlete of the Year.
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