Burge Hired as Strength & Conditioning Director

COLLEGE STATION—Tanna Burge has been hired as the Director of Strength and Conditioning at Texas A&M University, Director of Athletics Eric Hyman announced today. In her role, Burge will oversee the strength and conditioning programs for all sports other than football.
 
"After conducting a national search, we are truly excited to have Coach Burge lead our strength and conditioning program ", Hyman said. "Coach Burge's varied background and experience from the United States Military Academy to Clemson to Baylor and to Northwestern University, will provide our student-athletes with superior strength training as we continue our mission to build champions!"
 
Burge comes to Aggieland from Northwestern University, where she coordinated the training and conditioning for the Wildcat women's basketball, women's tennis, and men and women's swimming and diving teams since 2013. This past season both the women's basketball and women's tennis teams reached the second round of the NCAA Championships.
 
"I am very excited to have the opportunity to return to my home state and to work at Texas A&M, one of the top athletics departments in the country," Burge said. "Texas A&M has proven its ability to compete in every sport in the SEC, as well as at the national level. I look forward to training these elite student-athletes and working alongside the coaching staffs and administrators in the department."
 
While at Northwestern, Burge also served as director of sports performance community outreach, editing a monthly department "Peak Performance Newsletter" while also sharing the latest news from the sports medicine and sports performance units as the group's social media coordinator. Additionally, she served as a liaison to the Sports Nutrition unit.
 
Burge started her college athletics strength and conditioning career as an undergraduate at Baylor University. She worked three years as a student assistant in the Bears' strength and conditioning department and earned a bachelor's degree in 2001 from Baylor in health/fitness studies.
 
An internship at the University of North Carolina, where she assisted the strength and conditioning staff for all Olympic sports, led to a graduate assistant position in 2002 at Clemson University overseeing Olympic sports. Burge used the opportunity to begin work on a master's degree in food, nutrition and culinary sciences. She was promoted in 2004 to Director of Olympic Sports on the Clemson strength and conditioning staff.
 
In 2005, her alma mater Baylor called and offered her a position to train various Bear athletic teams.
 
Five years later in 2010, Burge took one year away from collegiate athletics to serve as a missionary and participated in The World Race (11 countries in 11 months) and Passport (leading college students for two months in New Zealand) with the Adventures in Missions' organization. Her passion for training student-athletes led her back to collegiate athletics in 2012, when she worked with the United States Military Academy before being hired by Northwestern.
 
Burge grew up in the small Central Texas town of Bertram. She is certified through the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association (CSCCa), USA Weightlifting Level 1-Club Coach and American Red Cross (CPR).