Memoir of a Basketball Wife’ — details her experiences living around world as Chris Burgess pursued pro career with up to five children in tow.
Lesa Burgess had dozens and dozens of memorable experiences — some painfully heartbreaking and others delightfully humorous — as the wife of a professional basketball star playing overseas for 10 years and the mother of five children.
Her most unforgettable “adventure” came during her husband Chris Burgess’ seventh season abroad on the shores of the Black Sea in the town of Zonguldak, Eregli, Turkey. Lesa gave natural birth to the couple’s third child, Ava, in a makeshift hospital room that was so sketchy that nurses gave her a tetanus shot after the delivery as a precaution for using unsterilized equipment.
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At one time during the proceedings, after the unsympathetic Turkish doctor lectured her about her motherly duties and intimated that she would be a “terrible mother” if she didn’t breastfeed the infant, he stepped outside the delivery room to take a smoke break.
“It was such an intense experience, and I still remember it so vividly, so many parts of it, that it is still strong in my mind,” she told the Deseret News. “I love sharing that story, because it is so unique, and also because I gained a lot of strength through that experience. It was extremely challenging, but in the end it reminded me that I can do really hard things.”
A former standout high school and college soccer player who met the 6-foot-10 Chris Burgess when they were both student-athletes at the University of Utah, Lesa Burgess recently self-published a book about “being a devoted wife to a professional basketball player while living all over the world … while simultaneously striving to nurture a growing family of five children.”
The 245-page book, entitled “Behind the Bench: Memoir of a Basketball Wife,” can be purchased on this website she set up, or in paperback or Kindle form on Amazon. It is not yet available in bookstores, and may never be.
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From this writer’s viewpoint, it is a fun, interesting page-turner, at times breezy and laughter-inducing, at other times poignant, inspiring and deeply personal. It is chock-full of anecdotes and experiences from what was a Herculean task of raising five children in unfamiliar surroundings, while also providing insights into what makes one of the most significant figures in the never-ending Utah-BYU sports rivalry, Chris Burgess, tick.
The story of the former Duke and Utah player and Indian Hills (Iowa) Community College, Utah Valley, Utah and BYU assistant coach is well known and well documented. This is Lesa Burgess’ story to tell, and she tells it well.
“My wife Lesa wrote a book and it is incredible,” Chris Burgess wrote on X. “It is about life as a basketball wife, raising our five kids while traveling the world during my playing career overseas. Seven years in the making. Heartfelt, honest and full of stories you’ve never heard.”
Such as the one about giving birth in Turkey, or trying to travel with the beloved family dog, Jango, to foreign countries, or celebrating Christmas in Paris with gifts wrapped in old newspapers.
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Lesa said her original goal was to write down some of the experiences for her kids to enjoy, but one thing led to another, and after having plenty of people tell her she should write a book, she did.
“Selling copies was never my goal. I love that people buy it and read it. And I love when people let me know what they thought about it,” she said. “I am pretty sure that I probably spent more money on it than I will probably ever make. And that’s OK. I knew that going into it.”
Her husband’s last year playing overseas was in 2013, and he played for 18 different teams during that time, in locales such as Australia, South Korea, Dubai, Phillippines, Poland, Puerto Rico, Ukraine and, of course, Turkey.
“It got to the point where I realized I was going to start forgetting a lot of the stuff. And it is so unique, and I want our kids to have these stories, because they had such a unique childhood — especially these older ones who experienced it for so many years of their childhood,” she said. “I have never considered myself a writer, but over time the thought of writing it became a little seed that was planted, knowing I would have this physical thing that I could give my kids, kind of like a keepsake they would have forever.”
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Lesa said she didn’t keep track of the time it took to produce the book, but at times “the project” seemed insurmountable. In the acknowledgements portion of the book, she credits God and the family’s membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as incredible helpers, as well as her parents, friend Jessica Whitehead, editor Kaitlin Dunford, book cover designer Shauna Howell and “my world and my home” — Chris Burgess.
And she can probably be forgiven for using the basketball term “forward” in the introduction, instead of the traditional “foreword” — whether it was intentional or not.
A balancing act — and total team effort
When the book first arrived, my wife took a look at the cover photo and asked me to ask Lesa if she was really standing on a basketball in high heels, or if it was photoshopped.
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“It is real,” Lesa said. “I really was standing on the basketball. The photographer (Nate Edwards) that works with the BYU basketball team, he took that photo.
“If you look closely, I have like a death grip on Chris’ arm.”
How involved was Chris, who joined new BYU coach Kevin Young last spring and was a big part of the Cougars’ run to the Sweet 16?
“There were times when I had Chris help me a lot,” she said. “I would just pick his brain on stuff, see if his memories of some things were the same as mine, and if it felt accurate to him. Because I really strived to be honest and open, but at the same time I wanted to depict the experience fairly.”
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Actually, seeking Chris’ input became one of the more enjoyable parts of the process, she said.
“So you are kind of like reliving those experiences together. And he will be like, ‘You forgot this, or that,’” Lesa said. “And we would have a good laugh. We have this really deep sense of the emotions that you felt during that time. They really seep back into you. … My favorite part of writing it was the back-and-forth I would have with Chris and re-feeling some of the emotions, even the hard emotions. Because it was just kind of special. It was like a missionary thinking back to their mission. It was a huge experience that changes your life forever. To kind of feel those emotions again as I was writing the book, that was my favorite part.”
‘Like a child at Christmas’
Lesa Burgess has experienced all the highs and lows of her husband’s playing and coaching experiences, as well as the joy that comes from giving birth to their five children. She’s generally an introvert, and doesn’t like to be in the spotlight.
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But she will never forget the feeling when the book finally arrived, and she could hold it in her hands.
“When I first got it, I was like a child at Christmas, to be honest. Like, I opened the box and it was so surreal,” she said. “I am not a cryer. I am not a super emotional person. But my eyes definitely welled with tears, because it was this thing that I never really totally knew if I could actually create. I didn’t know if I would ever actually get to the finish line.
“It is funny, because it felt so simple in my hands. I was like, ‘Man, all this work in this one little thing.’ It didn’t even feel that big,” she continued. “So that part was a little bit surreal. It seems like a simple, small little thing, but it was incredibly touching and meaningful for me to hold it in my hands, and be like, ‘Here it is. This is what I have been working on.’”
Is another book in the works?
Lesa has been a coach’s wife for more than 10 years now, which might make a good book in and of itself, but she has no plans to write another memoir at the present time. Since it was published, she has had several wives of international players reach out and thank her for sharing details on what might appear to be a glamorous lifestyle, but really is not.
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She also learned some things about how difficult it is to complete a book, while also raising five children — who are all involved in sports.
“There would be months where nothing would happen, and then I would have a big surge of working on it constantly,” she said. “A lot of times over the summer not a lot would get done on it, because you are so busy running the kids here and there and to camps and stuff, whatever.
“I couldn’t even tell you how many hours it took altogether, but it was a lot.”
She could also write about being a college athlete herself, and then becoming the mother of several college athletes who were featured prominently in the book, when they were just toddlers.
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The oldest, Kelli Jo (KJ), started her career at Utah but now plays volleyball for Oklahoma.
Pleasant Grove’s Kelli Jo Burgess hits against Skyridge in Lehi on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
The second oldest, Zoey, transferred from Kansas to Arizona State and is entering her sophomore year at ASU.
Ava, famously born in Turkey, is entering her sophomore season at Lone Peak High and is also a volleyball star.
Beckham, who is going into the eighth grade, and Zach, who is going into the seventh grade, are following in their dad’s footsteps and love basketball.
The family dog, who was a fixture until a few years after Chris’ playing career ended, Jango, has moved on to dog heaven, replaced by Blue, the color of Chris’ favorite baseball team, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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Blue or red? Lesa Burgess has also been on both sides of the rivalry
Chris Burgess has been asked hundreds of times about the BYU-Utah rivalry, having deep connections with both schools. He is asked about that almost as much as he’s asked how tall he is.
What about Lesa Burgess, a self-described “tomboy head to toe” growing up as Lesa Zollinger in the Cache Valley who was recruited to the Utah women’s soccer team and introduced to Chris by one of his teammates at Utah, Phil Cullen?
“We have love for both programs. We do have a lot of love for the Utah program, and for the people there and the relationships we made while we were there,” she said. “But at the same time, we also have a really deep love for BYU. We definitely feel at home at BYU, and we feel super blessed and grateful to be a part of BYU right now. … Chris is really enjoying his experience with the staff that is there, with Kevin (Young) and his family and they are so great.”
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Lesa said that their experiences overseas taught them that there are many, many more important things in life than school colors and allegiances.
“I do feel we have a slightly different perspective, just because Chris has played for so many teams and coached at several places. You kinda learn to respect them all,” she said. “We have a lot of respect for UVU and Indian Hills and the different places Chris has coached, and the relationships that you form.
“But obviously we are all-in on BYU. Our closets are full of blue (clothing), and we are all-in,” she continued. “So the rivalry, I understand it. I appreciate it. We will always have love for Utah. But you know, go Cougs.”
Former Utah center Chris Burgess, who now plays basketball for a professional team in Puerto Rico, shows off jerseys from his college and international basketball career. | Trent Toone, Deseret News
Source: Utah News
