2 weeks of basketball, a lifetime of Olympic memories for Butler High’s Cierra Burdick

Cierra Burdick already cherishes her memories of the Paris Olympics..

The ride down the Seine, getting drenched in the rain... hanging out with some of the greatest athletes in the world.

The disappointment of losing the first three games... then the joy of winning a medal.

“It’s hard to pick out any one thing over another,” Burdick, a former Butler High basketball standout, said of her Summer Olympics experience. “I’m still processing everything that happened. It might take years to process everything that happened.”

Burdick was on the four-member U.S. women’s 3x3 basketball team that rallied after a slow start and won the bronze medal in Paris earlier this month.

She has returned home to Matthews for a while and was honored Tuesday night by the Charlotte Knights during their game against Nashville at BB&T Ballpark.

While the U.S. men’s and women’s teams in five-player basketball captured gold medals, the 3x3 teams found the going a bit tougher. The men failed to medal; the women needed a big comeback.

Behind the 8-ball

“We were behind the 8-ball in preparation,” said Burdick, 30, who earned all-America honors at Butler before a standout collegiate career at Tennessee. “Our opponents had been playing together for quite a while.”

The U.S. team — Burdick, Dearica Hamby, Rhyne Howard and Hailey Van Lith — had 10 days of practice before going to France.

“It would’ve been easy to fold, after that 0-3 start,” said Burdick, who played for several seasons in the WNBA before moving to the professional 3x3 ranks. “We all had to tap into our experience and battle back.”

After the slow start, the United States team won six of its final seven. The team’s gold medal hopes ended in the semifinals, with a 19-16 overtime loss to Spain. The U.S. squad then downed Canada 16-13 in the bronze medal match, with Burdick sinking two clinching free throws in the final seconds.

Burdick said the overall experience of the Paris Olympics “was surreal.”

“There was so much that happened in two weeks in Paris,” she said.

The opening ceremonies, in which national teams motored down the Seine in boats, was a highlight.

“I got soaked in the rain,” Burdick said. “But it was well worth it. What a great experience, being with all the great U.S. athletes!”

Burdick’s mother, Lisa, headed up a group of family members that traveled to Paris to support Cierra.

“It was a village,” Lisa Burdick said. “Cierra’s high school coach, Stephanie Butler, was there too.”

She said watching a child compete in the Summer Olympics is not for the faint of heart.

“It’s stressful,” Lisa Burdick said. “But it gives you immense pride too.”

A trip back home

Burdick, who owns a house in Matthews but spends much of her time in Europe with professional basketball, said she is enjoying her time back home. A film crew went with her to Butler High last week, to work on a documentary.

“We checked out the trophies in the trophy case,” said Burdick, whose Butler teams were responsible for some of the hardware.

On Saturday, Burdick will be grand marshal in the Matthews Alive Parade.

Eventually, it will be back to basketball. Burdick said she’d love to play for the U.S. team again in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, but ...

“I don’t know how the body’s going to hold out,” she said with a laugh. “That’s four years away, and I won’t be getting any younger.”

She said she believes coaching is in her future.

“I want to take the opportunity to help other players,” she said. “In high school, I was the go-to player. In college, I played a big role. Since then, I’ve been a role player at times, and a key contributor at times.”

“It’s all part of a journey, and it has helped me to grow,” she said. “I think coaching is next.”

Burdick said she finds herself thinking about what happened over those two weeks in Paris.

“There were so many experiences,” she said. “So much happened. At the time, it was happening so fast. Now I’m getting a chance to process it all.”

“It was,” she added, “a really great experience.”