Westfield High School announced the hiring of Sandra Burks as its new head volleyball coach on Wednesday.
Burks is a teacher, volleyball coach, and resident of the Westfield community. She is in the midst of her 19th year coaching volleyball with experience in both the high school and club settings. Burks has coached at Bethesda Christian, Tri-West High School, Zionsville High School, and Westfield.
While at Bethesda, Burks coached the junior varsity team her first year and was the head varsity coach for the two following years. She gained this experience at Bethesda while a student at IUPUI earning her Bachelor of Science in Physical Education and Health, and doing her student teaching at Brownsburg West Middle School. During her three seasons at Bethesda, Burks had four athletes go on to play at the college level.
After graduation, she started her first permanent teaching job at Tri-West, where she coached and taught for nine years. While at Tri-West, she was the JV head coach, trained the setters program wide, and worked with the varsity as time permitted. While at Tri-West, Burks had seven 20-win seasons as the JV head coach. As a program from 2009-2012, Tri-West won four consecutive sectional titles, two in Class 2A and two in 3A. Tri-West finished in the Elite 8 during the 2010 season.
Through some volleyball connections, Burks met Zionsville head coach Dawn Jones. Burks interviewed for and accepted a position on staff with the Zionsville volleyball program. Burks’ goal was to get her foot in the door with the coaching position available as a freshman coach, pitch in with the full program, and move into a varsity role as that opportunity presented itself.
During Burks’ first year with Zionsville, the freshman numbers were quite low with the freshman squad, seven players in all. During that inaugural season with the Eagles, the freshman were a fun and competitive group of girls that finished the season with a record of 18-8, a tournament win, and a runner up tournament finish. Within that group of girls, one athlete made the jump from freshman to varsity the next year, and went on to play in college. Another athlete is a Division I softball player at the University of Dayton. In addition to this, Sandra worked with Zionsville’s setters in positionals, and with serve and serve receive tracking with the varsity team.
At the conclusion of her first year at Zionsville, Burks was offered the varsity assistant position for the upcoming year and continued to work with Jones in this capacity for three additional years. During those three years, Zionsville earned two consecutive sectional championships, one regional championship, and one final four finish at semi-state. During her time at Zionsville, Burks feels this is where she truly learned how to run a volleyball program, including both the high school and youth components. While with Zionsville, eight athletes committed to play in college (seven volleyball, one softball) and five athletes are currently still in the active process. Burks was the interim head coach at Zionsville while Jones was on maternity leave.
The end of the 2016 season brought a lot of change at Zionsville. Jones moved due to a job transfer and Burks was offered a position on the coaching staff where she worked at Westfield High School. Burks made the decision to leave her role at Zionsville High School to go on staff at Westfield as the freshman head coach. Burks describes this transition as one of the hardest she has done, but as the year progressed she found it to be one of her most rewarding years of coaching volleyball. Burks had a talented freshman group that went 19-9, finished runner up in two tournaments, and third in another. Burks describes this freshman team as one of the hardest working and hungriest group of athletes she has ever coached. They hit the ground running every single time they walked onto the court and they were led well by their two captains who embraced their leadership roles.
With the resignation of coach Michelle Mapes, an opportunity arose that Burks had been preparing and waiting for her whole coaching career, to be a head coach where she taught. Burks is excited about the opportunity to coach in the community where she lives and works with such a committed volleyball family.
In addition to coaching at the high school level, Burks currently coaches club volleyball at Team Indiana where she coaches the 15 Elite Molten Thunder. The Thunder have had one first place finish at a tournament thus far this season and one other top five finish in their first four tournaments. Burks has coached the 15 Elite Molten for three consecutive years and is in her 12th year coaching club overall. Burks attributes much of her technical growth as a coach to her involvement in club volleyball. It is a unique atmosphere where coaches collaborate regularly regarding technique development. This benefits both athlete and coach development. This unique setting also helps a coach create a deep network among the coaching community among local high school and club coaches for the sharing of ideas and scout information for the betterment of all programs. Burks loves that she can walk into almost any gym in the high school season and have the opportunity to play against or see athletes (and coaches) that she has coached or trained within the club community.
Burks continually educates herself through being a member of the AVCA and USAV, attending clinics (Gold Medal Squared- USA Volleyball, AVCA convention, and ICGSA), and attending team camps with her athletes as a coach for drill ideas (Purdue University, University of Louisville, and Munciana satellite and team camps). She has earned two degrees from Indiana University, a Bachelor of Science in Physical Education and Health and a Master of Science in Special Education. She has been in education for 15 years. She has taught at Tri-West High School, North Central High School, and has now been at Westfield High School for three years. Burks is from Brownsburg, where many in her family still live. When not at volleyball, she spends time with her family and enjoys spoiling her nieces and nephews.
Sandra Burks