Kevin Burnham - When you live in sunny southern Florida, there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy outdoor sports.  For Kevin Burnham a love of water led to surfing, waterskiing and diving.  A junior tennis career that ended at age 16 opened the door to sailing and “the competitive juices started flowing.”  He teamed with Morgan Reeser in the 420 while Morgan was still in high school, and they won the first regatta they sailed.  After college and work, they resumed competing as a team and their earlier success was confirmed in later races.  In 1986 they went to the Goodwill Games in Russia where they won a Gold Medal. 

Although injuries prevented Kevin from sailing in the 1988 Olympic Trials and 1990 World Championships, he and Morgan resumed their Olympic campaign and got creative with fund-raising, one of the most critical elements of any Olympic campaign.  They sold t-shirts and lemonade at University of Miami football games; raffled off donated airline tickets and cruises; and attracted the attention of Key Biscayne Yacht Club which named them honorary life members and donated $10,000 to build a new boat.  The pay off was their win of the 1992 Olympic Yachting Trials and the right to represent the U.S.A. in Barcelona.  The medals were decided in the last race and favored the home-court Spaniards with the Gold, with Morgan and Kevin winning the Silver.  In 1996 they won their second trip to the Games, and they finished eighth out of 36 boats in Savannah, the satellite venue for sailing.  At the 2000 US Olympic Team Trials, they finished second to Paul Foerster and Bob Merrick.

Morgan’s retirement from the 470, put Kevin – who has said he will sail a 470 for as long as he can – in the market for a new skipper and he placed the call to Paul Foerster.  The pair quickly demonstrated that their experience would make them a force to contend with on the international circuit:  In their second outing as a team – at the 2002 470 World Championships – they placed sixth out of 109 teams and qualified the USA’s berth to the 2004 Olympic Games in the 470 Men’s event.

In November, 2003, the pair so dominated the 2004 Olympic Team Trials that they were able to sit out the final three races after mathematically securing the win.  In the afterglow of the win, Kevin reflected that “Sometimes you just have those regattas where everything just seems to click and this was one of those.”

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