Farewell, My Friend

When the Manhattan women's basketball team went to Montreal on its foreign tour in 2010, I wanted to check out Montreal's Olympic Stadium, so I went one afternoon when we didn't have a game.  Sonia Burke, our Associate Head Coach, decided to go with me.  (Andrew Cornicello, our trainer and my road roommate for so many years, came too.)  The result was the above photo, which was taken from the observation deck of the magnificent inclined tower at the top, overlooking the entire city of Montreal.

Four years later, we returned to Montreal on another foreign tour.  I kept a blog on the website that was written by a different team member each day.  I wasn't planning on having an entry for the day we left...until Sonia decided she wanted to write one (and detailed the waiter knowing her breakfast order because it had been the same all week!).

Those are just two of the many stories like that I have from road trips with my great friend, who passed away today after a battle with cancer.  Sonia left an indelible imprint on the Manhattan women's basketball program, where she was on staff for more than a decade and, as the recruiting coordinator, was responsible for so many great players becoming Jaspers.

She easily could've left to become a head coach somewhere else, but I got the sense that she didn't want to.  She loved the team and the players too much!  Not that she wasn't capable, though!  She was the defensive coordinator for a team that allowed just 51 points per game and ranked third nationally in scoring defense, then she was the offensive coordinator for a team that scored in the high 60s/low 70s every night a few years later.

Sonia knew her stuff, and everybody knew it!  She was from Barbados and had been on the Barbadian National Team during her playing days.  She was so proud of that Barbadian heritage, too, and while the rest of us suckers were enduring the Northeast winter over Christmas break every year, she'd always come back refreshed after spending a few days at home in the Caribbean.

We were on the staff together for eight years under two different head coaches, and I sat behind her on the bus that entire time!  We didn't have "assigned" seats, but, she always took the fourth seat on the right and, since the one behind it had the outlet, the fifth seat on the right was mine.  Which led to plenty of whispered conversations when we were the only two awake (or didn't want anybody to hear us!).  And if anyone tried to take either of our seats, there would be some definite hell to pay!  It eventually got to the point where everyone just knew those were our seats!

Every year when the team took their headshots, she always took a new one.  I'm not exactly sure why.  Because every year, without fail, she decided that she wanted to leave her existing one on the website...to the point where it became a running joke between us!  Every year, it was the same too.  She'd take a new one, say she liked it, but end up sticking with the one from her first year anyway!

This wasn't the only headshot
Sonia ever took, but it's the only
one that ever made the website!

Her taste in football teams (or, I guess more specifically, her taste in quarterbacks) left something to be desired.  Although, it did make it easy that year I got her for Secret Santa.  As much as it pained me to stand in the checkout line with a Tom Brady t-shirt, she definitely enjoyed her gift!

It wasn't just Brady, though.  My first year, we played at Siena on Super Bowl Sunday, and one of the parents set up a team dinner after the game.  Our head coach suggested I drive up myself so that I could leave after the game and be home in time for the Super Bowl.  Guess who hopped in the passenger's seat?  (And the Patriots weren't even playing!  It was the Steelers-Cardinals Super Bowl!)

Another thing that I learned about Sonia during all my time working with her was not to bother her at 1:30!  She took lunch at the same time every day and shut the door to her office.  Why 1:30?  Because that's the time The Bold and the Beautiful came on, and the TV in her office was tuned to CBS!

Some of my favorite memories from Manhattan were just going into the women's basketball office and hanging out with the staff.  I'd go in there with an actual reason, completely forget what it was, and still spend 45 minutes in there!  We'd just talk about stuff and/or make fun of each other.  We were all truly friends, and I cherished those relationships.

After she left Manhattan, Sonia ended up across town at Fordham.  The first time Fordham visited Manhattan after she joined the staff, I asked her if she was lost.  She had gone to the visitor's locker room was sitting on the wrong bench!  As soon as she heard my voice, she turned around and gave me a big hug.  We hadn't seen each other in a while, but it was like we'd just seen each other yesterday.

I haven't worked a game at Fordham in a few years, but a friend of mine who's a regular member of their gameday staff noticed that she wasn't on the sidelines for most of last season.  He assumed the reason was COVID-related.  It wasn't until one of the Fordham players set up a GoFundMe page for her that we found out it was cancer.  Having already lost my mom to cancer and knowing about the toll chemotherapy can take on people, I donated and wished her the best, hoping that she'd beat it.

Unfortunately, Sonia lost her battle, and the world has lost a wonderful woman.  She was as great a friend as she was a basketball coach, and I'm lucky to have not only known her, but also to have had the privilege of calling her a friend.  I'll miss you, my friend.  Rest in peace.