Male athlete of the week

Name: Eric Burnett Major: Theater Arts and Film Studies Favorite Band:… Name: Eric Burnett Major: Theater Arts and Film Studies Favorite Band: The Red Hot Chili Peppers Favorite TV Show: “The Price is Right” Favorite time of year at Pitt: When it snows Favorite sports other than cross country: Soccer and Bocce

Next year, senior Eric Burnett will leave the city in which he’s grown up and head to Los Angeles to pursue a theater arts career.

“I’d like to get involved in film however possible,” Burnett said, “whether it be directing or cinematography. Acting is the main thing that I’m trying to do. I’ve got a couple buddies out there that I’m going to move in with and I don’t know, kind of do the whole acting career.”

One place he doesn’t need to act is on the race path.

Burnett has placed in the top three team places in three of his four meets this season alone.

He began his cross country career in high school just to stay in shape for track, but since then, he’s had a stellar career. He wasn’t necessarily planning on running at Pitt but decided to try out as a walk on.

“I’ve had a pretty rough history with injury in my senior year, so I never got looked at for recruiting or anything,” Burnett said. “When I came to Pitt, I was just looking to get a good education. I was looking at going to Northwestern for college, but they didn’t have a men’s cross country team, and I wanted to have that option.”

His proudest Pitt sports moment is running the 4-by-800 relay at the Big East Championships last year.

“We ended up getting third place and we ended up on the podium,” Burnett said. “The other thing that made that so meaningful was that Sam Bair ran at Shaler in high school, and he was sort of the premier track guy and just dropping ridiculous times. I was running the 800 against him in high school and getting beaten by eight, nine seconds and here I was, four years later, handing the baton off to him going into the last leg. Afterwards, I remember getting emotional. Everything just kind of came together. Right at the moment it was just awesome.”