Lee Chadbourne Burling
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Sport:
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Year
Graduated: 1954
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Year
Inducted: 1982 |
Lee Chadbourne Burling was a 1954 graduate of Boston University's
Sargent College.
Burling excelled in several sports while attending Boston
U. She was a member of Sargent College's volleyball, basketball,
and fistball teams. She was also a stand-out tennis, badminton,
field hockey, and lacrosse player.
In basketball, Burling played for Hall of Famer Lindy Saragosa
and was a member of the two-time Connecticut AAU championship
team.
A native of Manchester, NH, Burling began playing field hockey
her freshman year at Boston U. She was a member of the Northeast
and Southeast Sectional teams from 1952-59 and a U.S. Reserve
player in 1955. In 1958, she started a two-year stint as a
right wing on the U.S. National team that toured South Africa.
Burling won the Massachusetts State Badminton Championship
in 1952 and the Eastern Open Championship in 1953. In 1954,
she teamed with Margaret Varner and was runner-up in the Montreal
Championships. Both women got to the finals of every doubles
tournament on the East Coast that year only to finish second
each time. As a singles player, Burling lost to Varner in
the semifinals of the National badminton tournament and gained
a national ranking of fourth.
Taking up lacrosse in 1951, Burling made the U.S. team in
1954 thanks to the coaching of Gretchen Schuyler, also a Hall
of Fame member, among others. She made the U.S. squad from
1954-60 and in 1957, as a member of the Reserve team, she
toured the British Isles.
Burling and Vera Dwight won the 1952 All-College Doubles
Tennis Tournament at Longwood. She didn't really compete seriously
in the sport until she was 40, when she played pro-tennis
at Syracuse, NY. Her success carried over in the tennis courts,
however, as she entered the Senior Women's circuit and competed
in the National Grass Court Championships and Forest Hills
and the National Clay Court Championships in Housgon. In 1978,
she was ranked second in the 45 doubles. The following year
she was ranked third in the east by the E.T.A. in the 40 singles
and ninth nationally.
In 1968, Burling took up squash at the age of 36 and was
a member of the top ten the next six years. In 1971, she was
ranked third in the country.
