Blake Burdette (born January 19, 1980, in

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

) is a rugby coach and former American

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

hooker or

prop A prop, formally known as a (theatrical) property, is an object actors use on stage or screen during a performance or screen production. In practical terms, a prop is considered to be anything movable or portable on a stage or a set, distinct ...

. He was a member of the

United States national rugby union team The United States men's national rugby union team, nicknamed the Eagles, represents the United States in men's international rugby union competitions. USA Rugby is the national governing body for the sport of rugby union in the United States, a ...

and made his international debut in 2006 against

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

. Burdette played for the USA Eagles in the

2007 Rugby World Cup The 2007 Rugby World Cup () was the sixth Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition organised by the International Rugby Board. Twenty nations competed for the Webb Ellis Cup in the tournament, which was hosted by F ...

. Currently, he has returned to playing professionally with

Utah Warriors The Utah Warriors are an American professional rugby union team based in Herriman, Utah, that competes in Major League Rugby (MLR). The team was founded in 2010 as the Utah Warriors of the Rugby Super League and re-founded in 2017 by Rugby Ut ...

having come out of retirement aged 39, 12 years after previous professional rugby playing experience. In 2002, Burdette played as a University of Utah football walk-on. In his senior year, Burdette was nicknamed the 'Utah Man' on the campus' football team. Burdette played every game in the 2004 season for the

Utah Utes The Utah Utes are the college athletics in the United States, intercollegiate athletics teams that represent the University of Utah, located in Salt Lake City. The athletic department is named after the Ute tribe of Native Americans in the Unite ...

football team, and played for the Utes as an 4x All-American rugby player (2003–2006), before dedicating his time to playing professional rugby in England. His England rugby career lasted only one season due to injury.

Coaching

In 2007, Burdette joined the Utah Utes rugby team as assistant coach, taking over as head coach in 2009, but resigned after the team was suspended for misuse of branding. In 2015, Burdette was hired as head coach of The Pennsylvania State University's Men's Rugby Team. Burdette is the first full-time, university employed head coach in the history of PSU Rugby.

References

1980 births Living people Rugby union props American rugby union coaches United States international rugby union players Sportspeople from Minneapolis Utah Warriors players Sports coaches from Minneapolis Rugby union players from Minnesota {{US-rugbyunion-bio-stub