Tag: Texas

Mayde Creek’s Kriesel leaves impact as Ram, Ladyjack
Katy native Ashley Kriesel is shown pitching for Stephen F Austin University (COURTESY STEPHEN F. AUSTIN UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS)

BY DENNIS SILVA II | densilva2@gmail.com

Mayde Creek softball coach Jill Voss struggles to pick her favorite Ashley Kriesel moment. Two come to mind.

The first came during the spring of 2016, between Games 2 and 3 of the Rams’ best-of-three area playoff series against previously undefeated Cypress Woods. Voss was a nervous wreck, her team down to a do-or-die game and a potential program-defining upset win. In midst of the rollercoaster pregame emotions and thoughts, Voss lost her lineup card and scurried back behind the dugout, where she tried to hold back tears.

“Nobody saw me. Ashley comes behind and I told her, ‘Hey, we need you. So, if you can go, we need you to go,’” Voss recalled telling her senior ace pitcher, who had also pitched each of the first two games of the series. “And she says to me, ‘No, we need you! Get in here!’ I’m in tears, trying to hold it together, and she calls me back to the dugout and I just say, ‘Yes, ma’am.’”

Voss laughs at the memory.

“She was our mother hen,” Voss said.

Continue reading “Mayde Creek’s Kriesel leaves impact as Ram, Ladyjack” →

From writing letters to leading a program: Katy’s Burg takes over at Georgia Southern
Then-Texas Tech assistant coach Brian Burg, left, talks to head coach Chris Beard during a game.

BY DENNIS SILVA II | densilva2@gmail.com

For 29 consecutive days in 2005, Brian Burg wrote letters to then-Texas Tech men’s basketball coach Bob Knight and Knight’s then-assistant coach Chris Beard.

Burg, fresh off a graduate assistant coaching gig at NCAA Division III Lake Erie College, knew he wanted to be a basketball coach. But he needed an opportunity.

Burg admired Beard for the passion and communication skills he saw first-hand when Beard coached summer camps Burg attended as a child. So, Burg tried his luck. Day after day produced letter after letter. Finally, after Knight got perturbed with Burg’s persistence, Burg received an exasperated call from Beard, who acknowledged Burg’s desire, told him to stop writing Knight, and eventually set Burg up with a job for a junior college program.

Since then, it’s been a grind for the Katy native Burg in climbing the ladder of a profession that’s not for the meek. From Garden City Community College to Western Texas College to Middle Tennessee State to Campbell to North Carolina Central to Little Rock. Then, in 2016, landing at Texas Tech under Beard, enjoying a mesmerizing Final Four run to the championship game in 2019, and then, now, to the culmination of it all in Statesboro, Georgia.

Continue reading “From writing letters to leading a program: Katy’s Burg takes over at Georgia Southern” →