New coach ‘comes home’ to steer Lady Admirals soccer fortunes
“It’s definitely surreal at times,” said Burkhart, who was named Farragut’s girls soccer head coach last spring. “It’s good to be back, but there’s also more pressure because I don’t want to disappoint because the program means so much to me.
“You’re kind of vested in the program.”
Burkart was an All-state soccer forward during her playing career for the Lady Admirals. After graduating from FHS in 2006, she played collegiately at Carson-Newman from 2006 through 2009 and graduated from C-N in 2010 before spending a number of seasons as an assistant under then Lady Admirals head coach Dennis Lindsay.
Burkhart also served as a junior varsity and freshman boys coach at Farragut, working with fellow FHS graduate Ray Dover. Dover has now replaced Burkhart as Hardin Valley Academy’s boys coach. Before departing HVA, where she coached both the Hawks and Lady Hawks, Burkhart led the HVA boys to the Class AAA state semifinals in 2023.
She also had success as the Lady Hawks head coach.
Playing and serving as an assistant coach at Farragut makes Burkhart’s return to the school special — but her roots in Farragut and FHS run much deeper than that.
“That’s where I fell in love with high school sports,” she said. “We’re a sports family.
“My mom ran track at Farragut and my uncles played basketball there,” Burkhart added. “We always went to the football and basketball games. We’re a big sports family. I remember going to the Bearden-Farragut games growing up.”
Burkhart is becoming acquainted with her new team. She’s looking for big things from returners Lauren Leslie (senior, midfielder); Rowan Unger (sophomore, defender) and Malena Maier (senior, defender).
However, “I don’t really know who all their big returners were from last year,” she said.
While he may not be totally familiar with her new team, Burkhart does know how tough the completion is going to be in District 4-AAA, the toughest high school league in the Volunteer State, which is widely known as the “District of Death.”
The district features defending national champion and two-time defending Class AAA state champ Bearden, which hasn’t lost a game in two years,
Farragut also joins Maryville, also a contender for the league title, Hardin Valley Academy, Heritage and William Blount.
And the district now is even tougher, as defending District 3-AAA champion Knoxville West returns to 4-AAA.
“Just when you thought it couldn’t get any tougher, it did,” Burkhart said.
“You have to be ready to play every night or you’re going to get beat. I was talking and joking with (Bearden head coach) Ryan (Radcliffe), and he ask me who was the team to beat and I said ‘all of them,” she added.
“You have to play Maryville, and (coach) Steve (Feather) always has a tough, well-coached team, and then you have to play Bearden, the No. 1 team in the nation. Then, you have to play Hardin Valley. Heritage has enough players where they have a JV team and William Blount has a new coach.”
While Burkhart is glad to be back at FHS, leaving Hardin Valley was hard.
“It was tough to leave, and I have nothing but good things to say about the program at Hardin Valley,” she said. “I have nothing but good things to say about the people, players and parents that I worked with there.
“It’s been harder to leave than I thought, and I’ll be rooting for them when they’re not playing against us,” Burkhart added.
“I’m sure that there are some girls over there who want to win against me.”
