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Benjamin School grad flew high in basketball, but quit D-1 college team to find music, self

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Riley Burke
 |  Special to the Palm Beach Post

“You’re not trying!” my Columbia University basketball coach screams at me during a practice drill. Those words reverberate through my bones, and shame pulsates through my frame as I struggle to catch my breath. Not trying? Not trying? If I’m not trying, why do I feel like I’m dying? 

Flashback to my recruiting visit when the same head coach assures my parents that her No. 1 concern is my well-being as a person. 

Flash forward to a panicky feeling rising in my chest, an alarming number on a blood test that indicates I may have an enlarged heart and hearing the words “I quit” shakily leave my mouth in my coach’s office. 

Follow-up tests reveal my heart is fine — physically. Emotionally, my heart is bursting. Not from not trying, but from not listening to the nudge inside me, my true self saying: “You’re done. You don’t want to play basketball anymore.” 

More from the basketball court: NBA superstars have these game-day nap routines — and science says you should too

I quit with one of my high school teacher’s voices ringing in my head. “She only got in because of basketball.” 

I’m The Benjamin School Class of 2014 valedictorian and a Columbia freshman, and my tightly wound world has just imploded. 

She thought her dreams were built on D-1 college basketball

As a Division I athlete and high-achieving person experiencing my biggest perceived failure to date, the stakes feel incredibly high. I feel I’m letting down my dad, who has given up countless spring Saturdays to rise at 5 a.m. and drive 2.5 hours from our Jupiter home to my Orlando-based travel team practices (as I sleep in the passenger seat) while also flying me across the country to college summer camps for recruiting exposure. 

My challenges catch up to me: My legs go limp while battling undiagnosed mononucleosis as I complete my summer training regimen. There’s dissonance in my gut as my Columbia teammates snort cocaine in a bar bathroom and cheat on academic assignments. Confusing shame surfaces during group showers with my teammates. 

I cry myself to sleep most nights of my first semester. I feel my main point of connection with my father is shattering as we’re unable to find the words to process this abrupt ending. I never again hear from my Columbia coaches and athletic department. 

I struggle to say goodbye to what I thought was my decade-long dream to play college basketball. 

And then I realize: Perhaps basketball was never my dream in the first place. 

Music, sports, music, sports: The battle within

I’m transported back to The Benjamin School, playing violin to Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” in the courtyard by day and Bruce Springsteen’s “Land of Hope and Dreams” by night in my English teacher Perry Feyk’s student-teacher rock band. Prior to Benjamin, I’m presenting a Scattergories-type music theory game to classmates and leading the second violin section at Bak Middle School of the Arts. Before that, I’m an All Saints Catholic School student playing “Ave Maria” at Mass. And then I’m in kindergarten missing Friday P.E. to learn violin at St. Ann Catholic School. 

Music, sports, music, sports. It’s sometimes a battle, often a dance. Losing favor with my beloved middle school conductor when she learns I’m not auditioning for Dreyfoos School of the Arts because it doesn’t have a girls’ basketball team. 

Music, sports, music, sports. Both connect me to creativity, collaboration and performance. Both challenge me with performance anxiety and imposter syndrome. Both scare and liberate me. 

Music, sports, music, sports. Both demand discipline, technique, excellence. Both require surrendering to the moment. Both teach me about discernment. 

Music, sports, music, sports. Both leave my body, heart, mind and soul exposed to the outside elements. 

Music, sports, music, sports. Both ask for trust in self, coaches and teammates. Both show me the importance of standing in my power. 

Music, sports, music. Music has always been my true passion. It just took me 18 years to give myself permission to embrace my first love. 

Leaving the playbook behind

After quitting basketball, life unexpectedly leads me to an a cappella group and jazz voice lessons. My first song spills out of me as a steady stillness guides my fingers to the right piano keys to match a melody living inside me. I tap into this same unforeseen creative force as I process a difficult relationship with guitar in hand. I share this tune with my psychology lab partner who tells me, “RB, this is good.” He helps me fine tune its poetry. We share and tweak other songs. We form a jazz folk rock band. I graduate from Columbia, study further and get accepted into NYU’s master’s program in scoring for film and multimedia. 

I start dating my male songwriting partner and realize I’m gay. Our relationship implodes, I am gripped with another round of illness and grief, COVID rocks the world, and my life takes another drastic turn. 

I’m led to an acupuncturist who guides me through homeopathic treatments to address my recurring health issues and am met by the familiar feeling of grief-induced sobbing. I take a semester off from NYU because my anxiety and imposter syndrome resurface. 

I return to NYU, dive more seriously into making my debut solo album. I endure my anxiety until it peters out, trusting that same invisible guide that has taken me this far. 

Life leads me to music, theater, dance and comedy spaces throughout the city. I write music for the SNY Television Network, score the short film “In Passing” (which then premieres at the 2023 Tribeca Festival), and perform the closing tune from my upcoming album at the iconic The Bitter End in New York City as part of a songwriters’ showcase.  

I am deeply influenced by life-changing mentors at NYU, who re-ignite that 6-year-old in me who followed her divine hunch to pick up the violin. 

I flourish, and I continue writing, performing and collaborating to make sense of the deep way I process the world. 

I set out making art to see if I can disentangle from my messy humanness, transcend my perceived brokenness, and achieve a Buddha-like state. I’m pleasantly surprised to discover that the task of being human is just the opposite. And that the beautiful lies in the so-called mess. 

I now want to be in the arena participating in the scruffy aspects of the human experience. And I want to be surrounded by other seekers doing the same. 

Shame, grace, shame, grace: Navigating a new path

On Saturday, June 1, I am releasing Reconfiguration, my debut 13-song record, with a celebratory show at The Cutting Room in New York City to usher in my album on the first day of Pride Month. 

And I know the power within me is not the same as ours combined. 

And I know when we stand in truth it’s only abuse we refuse to choose. 

And I dream of the day we set down these privileges we’re scared to lose. 

The album closes with “I Know How These Things Go,” a song that bridges anger and hope as I reckon with how my personal transformation has reminded me of my identity in my family, community and the world. 

Shame, grace, shame. Grace for myself and others. An unshakable conviction that none of us is free until all of us are free. I expect people, individually and collectively, to stand for my safety (and liberation), and I do my best to live by these responsibilities in my roles and relationships. 

Trailblazing queer songwriter-comedian Jess Elgene will open my set at The Cutting Room, and I’ll be closing with Springsteen’s “Land of Hope and Dreams” as a nod to my Benjamin English teacher who saw something in me before I saw it in myself. 

My nine-piece band will bring my strings and horn arrangements to life. I will channel my Perry Feyk Project rock band violinist, all-state basketball player self to lead my current team. I’ll remember that kid connecting with her dad over music (Springsteen) — not sports — on countless car rides. I’ll give voice to my creative spirit and share my story while relying on my training and experience as a life-long performer (in both the arts and athletics) in a full-circle moment. 

And I know at the end of the day we’re not bound by shame but are trapped in grace. 

And I want us to trust that freedom doesn’t just happen one way. 

Shame, grace, shame, grace.

I say, to the Benjamin School valedictorian 10 years ago who perceived herself as a failure as a Columbia freshman only to find she never failed: She was just on the journey back to where she always belonged. 

Music, sports, music. 

Riley Burke is a Jupiter native now living in New York City.

About Riley Burke

Where to browse: rileyburke.co 

Where to listen: Apple Music and Spotify as Riley Burke, YouTube (@therileyburke), Instagram (@therileyburke) 

Where to see: Live performance – 9 p.m. June 1, The Cutting Room, New York City (Tickets: thecuttingroomnyc.com/seetickets-event/riley-burke; or at the door)

Where to buy: CDs, vinyls, T-shirts and mugs at rileyburke.bandcamp.com/merch 

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