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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

MONTGOMERY – One of the legends of coaching in both the Birmingham area and Shelby County will now have his accomplishments enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

The AHSAA announced on Sunday, Nov. 17 that former Calera boys basketball coach Robert Burdette will be enshrined in the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2025.

“You don’t go into coaching thinking, ‘Well, one day, you’ll be in the Hall of Fame,’ but if you’re surrounded by good people and just stay the course, sometimes good things happen to you,” Burdette said.

Burdette coached the Eagles from 1995-2014 and instantly made an impact, winning a state championship in his first two seasons with the program in 1995 and 1996. Calera also won the state title under his leadership in 2005.

Burdette is best known for his fast-paced offensive style that he first started at South Lamar when he joined them in 1986.

He won the state championship in 1992 after setting the AHSAA state record for most points scored in a season for the second-straight year. After scoring 3,286 points and averaging 106 points per game in the 1990-91 season, South Lamar scored 3,605 points and averaged 103 points a game during the 1991-92 season.

During that season, South Lamar defeated Lamar County 151-119 to set a single-game points record that still stands to this day.

From there, he coached Homewood from 1992-1995 and continued to lead a high-octane style before he landed at the school that would he would call home for two decades and find the most success: Calera.

In addition to his three state titles with the Eagles, he led the team to seven Final Four appearances across two difference classifications, booking a ticket to the BJCC in three straight seasons from 1999-2000 and four straight seasons from 2002-2005.

“There’s so many memories about all of the 18, 19 years that I spent there, just the incredible runs we had with the kinds of kids we dealt with and year after year after year just being able to have a chance to go to the final four and play for state championships, and it’s just a testament to those kids’ wills to succeed,” Burdette said.

Burdette retired from teaching in 2016 and currently coaches in Mississippi.

His Shelby County ties also run deep as he earned his master’s degree at the University of Montevallo. He studied as an undergraduate at UAB and played at Talladega High School, where he learned from a fellow Hall-of-Famer in Chuck Miller.
Burdette thanked his first principal at Calera, Danny Goggins, as well as Kim Mobley, former assistant principal and then principal at Calera High School, and Chuck Wade, his assistant of 17 years, as well as everyone who helped him throughout the years.

“(There are) just a lot of people that help you along the way that you want to thank them for their support and their input and just being able to work with them,” Burdette said.

Burdette will be inducted alongside the Class of 2025 at a banquet at the Montgomery Renaissance Hotel and Spa Convention Center March 10, 2025.

Other members of the Class of 2025 include T.R. Miller football coach Brent Hubbert; Huntsville volleyball coach Melanie Donahoo, former Grissom and current DAR volleyball coach Tanya Broadway, former Wenonah girls basketball coach Emanuel ‘Tubb’ Bell, McIntosh basketball coach Renard Davis, former Sydney Lanier and St. Jude basketball coach Floyd Mathews, Jr., former Auburn High baseball coach Matt Cimo, UMS-Wright tennis coach Meridy Lyle Jones, administrator Steve Bailey, influential athletic trainer Drew Ferguson, and coach/administrator Hadley Provience.