New Burnet Middle School girls coordinator reflects on 2025-26 success

CAPTION: One big reason why Sonny Wilson wanted to work at his alma mater, Burnet Consolidated Independent School District is his son, Ryder. Courtesy photo

One year after returning to his alma mater, Sonny Wilson took another significant step in his career. He is now the Burnet Middle School girls athletic coordinator.

Two years ago, he was sitting on the Georgetown High School girls basketball bench on legendary head coach Rhonda Farney’s staff. Farney has more than 1,200 wins and has the most victories of any active girls coach in the state.

And as happy as Wilson was to be working for Farney, even saying he missed working over there, wearing the Kelly green coach’s attire is a different feeling, he said.

“I had ambitions of coming back home,” he said. “My son (Ryder) is about to be a middle school kid; he’s about to be in sixth grade, so me getting to be with him was the very big deal to me, getting to be at the same school and at least in the same district as him, so I can be around for a lot of things. In Burnet, where I grew up, I really just wanted to find a way to get back around the area and if Burnet was an opportunity for me to get back, then so be it.”

Since his hire at Burnet Consolidated Independent School District, Wilson has finished school and earned his certifications, ensuring he was in position to move up if the opportunity came.

And though Wilson was finishing that part, he and athletic coordinator Mark Zeigler worked closely together throughout the 2025-26 school year in guiding the middle school. Wilson referred to the school year as being an intern.

“I started to kind of do the all-season workouts, getting them going for them and providing some leadership there for them,” he said. “Once football was over, I went to the girls’ side fulltime and just kind of ran with it. I fell in love with the girls over there. There was a lot of room for growth and fixing in things and setting some standards.”

He commended the players for the incredible seasons they produced in basketball and track. Just about all four teams had winning records, especially the seventh-graders, whose losses were counted on one hand. And the eighth-graders, who didn’t win a game the year before, were at .500.

“On the girls’ side, I feel like we just got really good momentum,” Wilson said. “It was hard for the girls for me to come in there right away in the middle of the season because I changed a lot up. There was a lot more discipline, a lot more accountability, a lot more holding their hands to the fire with some stuff. I practiced my seventh-grade A and eighth-grade A together, because I felt like that they all needed the restructure and the start over, so it was a good season for all of them.”

He noted he works closely with Burnet High School girls athletic coordinator Crystal Shipley and credited athletic director Grant Freeman for finding “a way to make it happen” for him to obtain his credentials to be a position to take the next step.

“I have a great amount of respect for coach Shipley and what she has done and what she’s trying to build,” he said. “I like to come in and just help make things better if I can, and I feel like that there was a lot of room for improvement at the middle school. I’m a big believer that everything happens for a reason. I have a lot of people to be thankful to for being back home.”