Cross-country’s Burgamy following in Ward’s footsteps
By Angela Stephan | Sports writer
Augusta University recently tabbed Jacob Burgamy to lead the cross-country and track-and-field programs for 2022-2023.
Burgamy replaces the highly successful Adam Ward, who took a similar post at the University of Maine in August. In his teams’ first races of Burgamy’s tenure, both the men and women took home the first-place trophies in the season-opening AU invitational at Redcliffe Plantation last weekend. AU’s Riley Triplett and Tripp Miller were the individual winners.
So who is Jacob Burgamy?
Burgamy grew up in small-town Tennille, Ga., about an hour southwest of Augusta. He began running in the fifth grade. By high school, he actually started his coaching career. As a 15-year-old sophomore, he was coaching other students who wanted to perform better. He saw some of those runners qualify for the high school national championships, and some of them signed college scholarships.
In college, first at Emmanuel and then at Campbell and AU, he trained athletes through his online business, 478 Athletics. This allowed him to coach while he was attending school. Once he graduated, Burgamy continued to coach athletes online.
Burgamy also coached at his high school, Brentwood School, which helped him gain more coaching experience.
“Coaching’s changed so much,” he said. “Back when I started, I had no idea what I was doing. Coach Ward had a huge impact on me, because I would come sit in here like three to five hours a week and just talk to him about training.”
Burgamy attended Brentwood in Sandersville for most of his high school career, but graduated from Washington County High School. He started at Emmanuel but finished his undergraduate degree at Campbell University with an exercise science degree, and then joined AU’s master’s program in kinesiology for graduate school. Burgamy received his master’s degree in kinesiology with an emphasis on coaching.
“I think that master’s degree helped me out a lot, but if I’m going to be honest, if you’re going to coach a sports team, you don’t really learn that in the classroom,” he said. “The program did help me from the psychology side and everything, but the actual training and coaching of distance runners that came more from the three to five hours a week that I used to spend in Coach Ward’s office.”
Sitting in Ward’s old chair, Burgamy said taking over for his former coach was a bit strange.
“It felt so weird, because I used to, in this little tiny hallway right here, I used pull-up a milk crate and sit on it,” he said. “I didn’t even know this second desk was back here. I used to sit there for three hours just on a random day of the week. It feels so weird being on the other side of it now and kids coming in here talking to me about training.”
Burgamy is ecstatic about coaching at Augusta University.
“There is not a program that I’d rather be coaching, so I am glad to be sitting in this chair,” he added. “There is no sports team in the world that I’m a bigger fan of than Augusta cross-country and track, even before becoming the coach.”
Burgamy’s dream was to one day become the cross-country and track-and-field coach at AU. Since he graduated with his master’s degree, he had kept up with the program at AU, and he knew all members of the team, their times and what their training looked like. This was all before knowing that Ward was leaving for Maine.
“It helped me a lot, now as their coach, that I kept up with the team and everything they’ve been doing,” he said. “It made it so much easier for me.”
As a former AU runner, Burgamy had an easy learning curve since he is familiar with the program, training locations, where to host practices, prior knowledge of practice times, managing time for the team making sure it works around their class schedules.
The Jaguar coach is still a part of multiple other programs, like the High-Performance West Scholar.
“I am still learning every day more and more, if there is a prominent coach that I see did an interview with somebody, and they were talking about training, I’m going to listen to it and take notes on it,” Burgamy said. “I’m going definitely to keep continuing to grow over the years.”
His strategy for the season is to get the Jaguar runners to peak at the right time.
“Right now the emphasis is really just on staying patient, because it’s a long season,” Burgamy said. “Nationals are Dec. 2 and regionals is two weeks before that, so we’ve got two and a half to three months before we really need to be sharp and at our best. That’s a long time. We’re just trying to preach patience to the kids, and not have them in peak shape in October when we need them in peak shape in November and December.”
Recruiting, of course, is the lifeblood of the program. One of the ways Burgamy does recruiting is through the program website.
“On our website, we’ve got a recruiting questionnaire that you can fill out, and my email is also on there,” he said. “There is probably about two to three kids who have been reaching out to me since I got up here, just interested in joining the program.”
Burgamy expressed his love for Augusta, and Augusta University, despite living an hour away growing up. He recalls all the places he used to go to, even his doctors’ appointments.
“I am happy to be here, because I am from a small town,” he said. “A lot of my doctors were up here, so I know Augusta really well. I’m also not far from family, just an hour from home.”
Burgamy said that AU is the ideal job for him.
“This is like the dream job that I wanted to have; this is the perfect position,” he said.
Hard work and passion brought Coach Burgamy to the chair he always wanted to fill, his growing skills and experiences landed him exactly where he wanted to be.
”If we are not growing, then what are we doing?” he asked.
Contact Angela Stephan at astephan@augusta.edu.
AU cross-country Coach Jacob Burgamy in the program’s crowded office in Christenberry Fieldhouse. Burgamy has a master’s degree in kinesiology from AU. (photos by Angela Stephan)
