It’s 5:30am when senior Brit Burden’s alarm clock goes off. His day begins at the Oakland YMCA, sometimes accompanied by a teammate, ritually practicing basketball.
Burden has played basketball since kindergarten, and fought for his spot as a starter and captain on the Piedmont High School Men’s Basketball Team for the past three years.
“Basketball is just a big part of who I am and what I like to do. It originally started out in COVID as my way of trying to get exercise and trying to get outside, but I started to really enjoy it,” Burden said. “It’s hard to imagine my life without this because it’s how I spend my days. It’s how I spend my life and it’s a big part of each and every day for me.”
Year-round basketball can take a toll, so Burden has other regimens that he practices.
“Regardless of if I play basketball or not, I like to do yoga in the mornings for like 10 to 20 minutes just to get my body and mind ready for the day. That’s a year round thing every morning,” Burden said.
During the summer, when most students are vacationing or working on internships, Burden’s commitment to his sport remains unwavering. A member of Infinite Basketball Club, he plays through the Spring and Summer, traveling through the tunnel to Pleasant Hill for daily practices. And in the Fall, he spends up to four days a week preparing for the Winter high school basketball season.
“I think he’s just super passionate about the game and it kind of rubs off on the rest of us. And like when we see him playing hard, we all want to play hard and just play for him,” senior and co-captain Declan Linnane said. “And he’s really good about picking other people up when they’re down. If something doesn’t go right, he’ll tell people “it’s all good, we’ll make the next play” and stuff like that.”
Despite hours of preparation during the Fall, Burden and his teammates will still put in extra time during the Winter season.
“We usually get to practice like 30 minutes to an hour early for practice to get in shots and work on things like that with the coaches there, that’s a lot of guys actually,” Burden said.
“We both have free seventh periods. He always wants to go in the gym and get shots up or just just play, work on
our skills and stuff like that,” Linnane said.
Burden’s time and energy pays off – he was named WACC First Team All-League in the 2022-2023 season, and was selected for the Chris Huber Classic All-Tournament Team this year. He is also considering playing basketball in college.
“I’m looking at some D3 schools and considering the possibility of walking onto a D1 school but not completely set on it,” Burden said.
“Watching his basketball journey has been cool,” said senior, teammate, and Burden’s long time friend Finn Burke. “He knew what he wanted, and he knew what he would have to do to get that, and he did it.”
