Marian Burnett toasted by U.S. President
- Guyanese among collegians exhorted by President Bush to “set example”
by Orin Davidson in the U.S.A. Stabroek News
October 6, 2002
Guyana’s middle-distance champion athlete Marian Joan Burnett has added another unique experience to her long list of impressive accomplishments in the U.S.A. This time, Burnett’s feat was not on the track, instead, it was ‘as a result of her outstanding sports performances’.
The Guyanese track star, last Tuesday was among several National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champions honoured by U.S. President George W. Bush at a Champions Day ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C. Burnett’s nine-member Lady Tigers track and field squad from Louisiana State University (LSU) was one of 11 NCAA Division One spring sports champion teams attending the mid-afternoon ceremony hosted by President Bush.
During the ceremony held in the East Wing, the American head of state exhorted the champion college athletes and their coaches “to be champions off the field” too. “I happen to believe you have a responsibility to set an example for others, that as you succeed on the field of play, you’ve got to remember there are youngsters looking at you, trying to determine how they should live their lives,” Bush said. “You’ve got an opportunity as champions to be champions off the field in the community in which you live.”
The U.S. leader who hails from Louisiana’s neighbouring state - Texas, personally met and introduced the teams, and afforded Burnett the only non-group snap-shot. He later accepted an assortment of gifts of sports items from the teams, and cracked jokes and talked sports with the young role models with ease and obvious delight.
For her part, Burnett who was the only Guyana-born athlete invited to the event, used the opportunity to promote her homeland, Guyana in discourse with President Bush, White House staffers and the other colleges’ representatives. In March, she had won LSU’s first-ever NCAA indoor 800m champion title, and anchored the 4x400m relay squad to 3rd place to largely contribute to the Lady Tigers winning the champion team honours.
The LSU women were accompanied by their school’s 2002 NCAA men’s outdoor champion team, making LSU the only university with more than one representative team at the ceremony. The other nine teams were the University of South Carolina - women’s outdoor track and field; University of California, Berkeley - women’s softball; University of Texas - baseball; University of South California - men’s tennis; Stanford University - women’s tennis; University of Minnesota - men’s golf; Duke University - women’s golf, Syracuse University - men’s lacrosse and Princeton University which had defeated the President’s alma mater - Yale University - in this year’s NCAA women’s lacrosse final.
Among those who initiated the first-of-its-kind ceremony was Burnett’s former LSU cross country colleague, Jason Carroll, who graduated last spring and now serves at the White House.
Meanwhile, Burnett returned to competitive collegiate action last Saturday, and led her team to second place behind winners Rice University at the 2002 LSU Invitational Cross Country Classic in Louisiana. She was the top finisher for her school, completing the difficult, storm ‘Isidore’-soaked 6km course in 22:47.02 to place seventh from a field of 79 runners.
Since the cross country season started in early September, her team had participated in two previous meets, placing 4th and 7th, but this was Burnett’s first representative run for her school since April, mid way in the outdoor season.