Baseball coach Fred Burnside is a Miami Herald Dade Lifetime Achievement Award recipient

One of the shining moments of Fred Burnside’s coaching career came in 2014 when he was carried on the shoulders of his players at South Dade High.

It was just after the Bucs secured their school’s lone state baseball title and the first of Burnside’s already distinguished coaching career to that point.

Burnside’s teams won over 500 games in the over half-century he spent coaching in Miami-Dade County.

But if you ask him, the highlight for Burnside came in all the moments in between when he became a mentor and father figure to hundreds of baseball players over the years.

For his success on and off the field, Burnside is one of this year’s recipients of the Miami Herald’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Miami-Dade County high school sports.

“He was one of my biggest mentors when I started playing organized baseball,” said former major-leaguer Nelson Santovenia, who played for Burnside at Miami Southridge and Miami-Dade College before playing seven years in the majors for the Montreal Expos, Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals.

“I had some talent, but his knowledge of the game and the way he taught me how to play with discipline and respect taught me how to play the game the right way. His passion for the game was always there then and it’s still there now.”

After initially retiring in 2017, Burnside returned to coach South Dade the past four seasons.

Burnside, a second baseman in high school at Miami Palmetto who started coaching at age 24 at Killian, chose to call it a career for good this past May. He stepped down after 12 combined years coaching South Dade and a career that spanned 52 seasons overall with stops at Miami Killian and Miami Southridge before coaching the Bucs.

“It’s an empty feeling right now, but I’m ready,” Burnside said after coaching his final game on May 11 when South Dade lost 6-5 in nine innings to West Broward in a Region 4-7A quarterfinal.

In addition to guiding the Bucs to their lone state championship, Burnside also led Southridge to a pair of state runner-up finishes in 2001 and 2002 when his teams were ranked in the top 10 nationally. As an associate head coach under Charlie Greene in 1981, he helped Miami-Dade win a junior-college national title.

He finished his career with a 552-198-3 record including a 198-87-3 mark during his time at South Dade.

Burnside won three Florida Coach of the Year honors and was named the Herald’s Overall Coach of the Year for Boys’ Sports during that 2014 state championship season. During his career, he coached numerous players who went on to play in college and at the pro level including major leaguers such as Santovenia, Robert Andino and Alek Manoah.

Burnside, 76, who also coached at the college level at Miami-Dade College and Southeastern Louisiana, lives in Key Largo with his wife, Josie, who for years, ran the South Dade concession stand and served as an unofficial “team mom.” He said he’s looking forward to spending more time with family and perhaps more time fishing.

“I love the competition. I love the challenge of getting a ball club together, and I got to coach for an outstanding school,” Burnside said in May. “The administration, everybody, has been behind us and supported us. We have one of the nicest facilities in town and the community…When I went to South Dade, there was nothing but a picnic table behind home plate, and now it’s a first-class facility.”

Aside from his victories, Burnside’s ability to adapt over the years and continue to get the best from his players, made him one of the most respected coaches in the county and beyond.

In an era where it has become increasingly difficult to keep rosters intact for multiple years due to rampant transfers, especially at the public school level, Burnside delivered one last renaissance for the South Dade baseball program.

This past season was a perfect example as a South Dade squad that wasn’t replete with major college or pro prospects went 14-7-3 and made its first regional playoff appearance since 2017.

After his final game, Burnside’s players and coaches huddled up by their dugout and then broke the huddle with a shout of “1-2-3, Fred!”

“We had won a state title and won a few districts before I left the first time and we’ve done some of that again,” Burnside said. “You always want more, right? One more game. But it’s been a joyride for me.”