Lexi Burt is kicking down barriers

RIO RANCHO – It's late in the fourth quarter at Rams Stadium in the Fall of 2022. It’s only week two, but it’s a big moment, and the crowd can’t contain itself.

They chant, “Rams! Rams! Rams!”

The RRHS Rams football team is tied after scoring a last second touchdown. It all comes down to one extra point.

The Rams turn to kicker Alexia “Lexi” Burt, a sophomore soccer player and cheerleader who sprints onto the field. Her black hair flows out from under their dark blue helmet. She looks small and slight behind the massive RRHS line. Jeers and insults fly her way; an attempt to get in her head and exploit any potential mental weaknesses. Despite the face mask, fear is leaking out.

“I’m new. I’m a girl. And all of these guys are huge,” Burt, now a senior at RRHS, said, recalling her first moments of game action. “Even the small ones are huge. The (opponents) are yelling these... things at me. And I just thought, ‘If I miss this, all of these big guys are going to be mad at me.’”

Then there’s a shift. The linemen set themselves. The long snapper goes still. The setter marks a spot in the grass, looks up and releases his clinched fist, just the signal the snapper was looking for. The ball goes sailing back, is caught and perfectly set.

Burt has shifted also. The kicker now appears calm, confident, focused. She approaches the ball with surprising speed. She kicks with violent force. The ball splits the uprights and the Rams win.

Burt played two games that freshman year.

“That was a big-time game situation,” she said. “From there, I was like, ‘Ok. I got this. I just shut everything out and I’ll shut everyone up.”

That’s what Lexi has been doing ever since: shutting up the haters and proving she belongs.

It wasn’t an easy journey for Burt. She had to overcome the typical issues that unfortunately accompany every female who dares to invade a traditionally male space. There are the catcalls and the insults, of course. But the doubters are really the ones who motivate her.

“It was bad, but then it got better,” Burt said of how the team first reacted to her presence in the locker room. “Especially sophomore year, the guys really had my back... There’s definitely a lot of opinions. I just keep kicking. Eventually, I always shut them up.”

Burt has always been ready to prove herself, even as a late convert to the game of football.

“My freshman year, when (RRHS football) played Cleveland in District, and our kicker missed the extra point, I was like, ‘I’ll bet I could make that!’,” Burt laughed as she recalled her introduction to football.

Later that year she had a fitness clinic with the RRHS volleyball coach out on the football field. During the break, she started kicking field goals for fun. A coach encouraged Burt to try out for the football team.

“I was like, 'no way',” she said. “But eventually I figured I would try.”

Rams head coach Nate Pino says Burt was shy at first but grew into a deserving member of the team.

“She was timider (at first) but she plays with a chip on her shoulder,” he said. “She wants to prove she can belong, and she does... She earned her opportunity.”

The senior kicker says her longest in-game kick was roughly 30 yards, but she hit a 48-yarder in practice. Coach Pino confirms that distance.

Burt keeps earning it. Last season, she tore her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) while making a tackle during a punt return. Even in the professional ranks, an ACL tear is often a full-year recovery.

“I was like I got this,” she said, recalling the opposing player running her way on the night of her injury. “Then he cut right and my leg just kind of slipped... and then popped.”

Burt got surgery in November and has a steady recovery, though she says it still gets fatigued quickly.

“It’s been tough this year,” she said. “I can’t just get out there and prove I can kick because I’m still recovering.”

The effort isn’t lost on Pino and his staff.

“Lexi has been a pleasure to coach,” Pino said. “It’s not always easy being a female in a male dominated sport. She has her ups and downs, but she’s committed.”

Lexi Burt takes it all in stride. The injuries, the taunts, the doubts are all just motivators. That doesn’t mean she sits on that anxiety though. She is a singer (though she would hate that information getting out) and a film lover.

“I’m lucky because she’s always singing and she’s fantastic,” says Lexi’s mom Bekka Burt.

“My mom is my biggest fan,” Lexi replies.

Whatever her future holds, Burt is determined to make her way on her terms and use that strength to help others. She says she plans to go to college, with the Air Force as a backup, to study Psychology.

“I want to be a therapist,” she says. “I just want to help people.”

As for her time on the team, she says she will only remember the good stuff.

“I’m not going to remember doing poorly in any of these games or practices,” she says. “I’m only going to remember having fun.”