After two seasons serving as the graduate assistant coach for the Lee University women's basketball team, NaKeia Burks has been promoted to assistant coach for the Lady Flames.
As the graduate assistant coach, she helped coach two Lady Flames teams that earned two berths in the NCAA Tournament, won the 2022-23 Gulf South Conference regular season, and made two appearances in the GSC tournament championship game. She graduated from Lee with her masters degree in May of 2023.
Head Coach Marty Rowe is excited that Burks is remaining with the Lady Flames. "We're extremely excited to have NaKeia returning to our staff and continue to have a lasting impact on our players. Her energy and enthusiasm is contagious and we're so fortunate to have her in our program."
Burks played her college ball at UTC (2015-2020) and played for Hall of Fame Coach Jim Foster for three years. She was a part of two SoCon Championship teams and two trips to the NCAA Tournament. Burks was namd to the 2019-20 SoCon All-Academic team and All-Defensive team. She also led the team in assists and scored a career-high 17 points against Furman on Jan. 18, 2020. She graduate from UTC in 2019 with a B.S. in Middle Grades Mathematics.
Burks showed her toughness and perseverance battling back from two knee injuries that nearly prematurely ended her career. The first injury occurred her junior year of high school and the second setback came her junior year of college.
After her playing career at UTC, Burks served as an Assistant Coach at James Clemens High School (Madison, Ala.) during the 2020-21 and helped guide the team to Regionals for the first time in school history.
Burks is originally from Huntsville, Ala. She is the daughter fo Jeffrey and Roshawnda Burks and has two young sister; J'Mya who is 22 and a student at UAH and Jordyn who is 12.
