Lobsterman, lumberjack, Trenity Burdine has done it all to keep hoops dream alive
When he was soaring across the court at the Geigle, helping Reading High win championships and building a resume as one of the top players in program history, Trenity Burdine never envisioned the life that would eventually unfold in front of him.
At 18, and with a bright basketball future ahead, he didn’t see himself someday manning a Maine lobster boat in the darkness each morning, spending 12-hour shifts cold and soaking wet and smelling of the sea.
He couldn’t imagine himself as a lumberjack in rural Indiana, operating a John Deer forklift and cutting up trees.
He didn’t picture himself with a tool belt wrapped around his waist, spending his day on rooftops and renovating houses.
Burdine, 6-6 and fluid on the court, saw himself playing basketball, in big arenas, before adoring fans, living out his true passion, his dream.
At 30, he is. The lights aren’t quite as bright as he might’ve hoped but he’s playing again on his home court, now for the Reading Rebels, a semi-pro team and first-year member of The Basketball League that plays most of its home games at Geigle Complex.
“It’s a great feeling to still be able to do what I can do,” said Burdine, the Rebels’ leading scorer at 20.9 points per game.
He wasn’t planning to move back to Reading — he’s been gone, for the most part, since leaving to play at Siena College in 2010 — but the birth of his daughter, Laila, brought him back last fall. A little while later the Rebels began to form and he thought, why not?
Burdine has been on the road for years, looking for brighter basketball opportunities: New York, Kentucky, Prince Edward’s Island, Indiana, California. All over the map.
“Just hoopin’,” he says.
He’s not sure how much longer he’ll stay in Reading.
He’s still searching for that basketball rainbow, hoping to hook on with a pro league, maybe play in Europe. He’s hoping his play with the Rebels earns him that chance.
For now, he’s happy to be back home, dressing in the same locker room he used as a kid, running on the same court that saw him rise to great heights with the Red Knights.
His teams won 100 games over his four seasons and he scored nearly 1,300 points — he would’ve been closer to 1,500, had he not missed nearly half his junior season with an injury.
He’s on anyone’s short list of the best players ever to wear Red Knights colors.
“To be able to play back at the High, it’s a great feeling,” Burdine said. “It’s a great feeling having people come watch.
“Obviously I miss the crowds, all the love. It’s just all good vibes to be able to be back.
“I like the league. It’s competitive. I’m just glad I’m able to do it at the ‘crib,’ and be here for my daughter and my young boys (Jay’Vion, 10, and Tejour, 8).”
His days with the Red Knights, from 2006-10, remain his most cherished.
“I loved it, man,” he said.
He experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows over four seasons with the Red Knights.
His senior season, 2009-10, was a great one, with 28 wins and league and district championships. He averaged 17.7 points, earned All-State honors and led the Red Knights to 24 straight wins at one point, including a 62-57 victory over Central Catholic in a Berks Conference semifinal before 7,000 fans at the then Sovereign Center — the largest crowd ever to see a game there.
It’s one of the most memorable Berks playoff games in history, and Burdine fronted a huge comeback, scoring 15 fourth-quarter points to hand the Cardinals — which included Rebels teammates Donovon Jack, Marcus Dawkins and Marquis Marshall — their first loss. Central went on to win 30 games and reach the PIAA Class A championship game.
“We talk about that (game) to this day,” he says proudly. “I lived for the moment.”
Burdine carried the Red Knights through the postseason and thought — in fact, still thinks — that team could’ve played for a state title. Those dreams died with a double-overtime loss to Roman Catholic in the second round of the PIAA Tournament.
“We get past Roman. . . ” he says wistfully, not needing to complete the sentence.
The game that cuts deepest, and likely always will, came two seasons earlier, when Burdine was a sophomore starter on a Reading team that won its first 30 games. That squad, which included his cousin Jordan Burdine and Jermaine Jackson — each 1,000-point scorers — breezed through the county and district playoffs, winning by an average of 18 points.
It opened the state tournament as the District 3 Class AAAA champ against Souderton, the No. 8 seed out of District 1. Everyone thought it was going to be a walk-over. Instead, it turned into one of the darkest days in Reading basketball history. The Red Knights were beaten 66-56, their dream season shattered.
It remains a festering wound.
“People came in not focused,” recalled Burdine, his team’s leading scorer that day with 17 points. “Some of the older guys came in thinking it was gonna be a sweet game. We just knew we were gonna get to that state ‘chip; everybody knew it.
“It hurts every (time) somebody talks about it. Some of the guys, if you bring it up, they don’t even talk about it. That’ll be one of best teams in history not (to) win (it all).
“I had three counties (championships), two districts, I needed that one state … that’s what I needed, and that could’ve been it for sure. If we would’ve played Chester in that state title game, I think we would’ve sold out (Bryce Jordan Center at) Penn State.”
Burdine had high hopes at Siena, where he was a top recruit for Fran McCaffery, but things didn’t go as planned.
McCaffery took the Iowa job before Burdine arrived. He missed his sophomore season, in 2011-12, with a foot injury. He had academic troubles, was suspended, and a year later found himself playing at Georgetown College, an NAIA school in Kentucky.
That, Burdine believes, severely affected the arc of his basketball career.
“I really think if things would’ve went differently at Siena, I probably would’ve made it to the next level,” he says. “I’m not gonna lie, after that it just kind of went (south).”
Like many others in the league, Burdine has hopes of moving up.
“Everybody wants to make it to the league,” he says of the NBA.
He’s realistic, though. He has a family to support. If that means climbing back on roof tops after this season concludes later this month, that’s what he’ll do. In the meantime he’s enjoying his homecoming.
“It brings back great memories,” he said. “During games, (I think): ‘You’re on my court; my name’s up there.’ A lot of kids, they (can’t wait) to get out of high school, they want to get into the real world, but all your greatest memories are going to be in high school. That’s what a lot of young kids won’t understand until they get out.”
