Washington Mystics media day at MCI Center – 2nd round expansion draft pick Washington Mystics foward/center Heidi Burge talks to the press. – Photo By Dudley M. Brooks TWP
The Washington Post/The Washington Post via Getty Im
Heidi Burge Horton, a former University of Virginia basketball star who played in the WNBA and inspired a Disney Channel Original Movie, before spending her final years coaching youth basketball in the Houston area died this week. She was 54.
Horton’s death was first reported by Jerry Ratcliffe, a longtime journalist covering University of Virginia athletics. According to a notice posted on Eikenhorst Funeral Services’ website, Horton died on Monday. Per Ratcliffe, Horton was diagnosed with Grade 4 brain cancer in October 2025. After going into remission, her tumors returned in July, and Horton entered palliative care in September. Horton is survived by her husband, Patrick, her son Jonathan, her daughter Holly, and her sister Heather. The University of Virginia Women’s Basketball program said it was “deeply saddened” by Horton’s passing.
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We are deeply saddened by the passing of Heidi Burge Horton. Heidi was a cherished member of the Virginia Women’s Basketball family, her legacy will forever be a part of Virginia Athletics. Our sincere condolences to her family and loved ones. https://t.co/j49F20cabU
— Virginia Women’s Basketball (@UVAWomensHoops) October 8, 2026
“Heidi was a cherished member of the Virginia Women’s Basketball family, her legacy will forever be a part of Virginia Athletics,” the program wrote on social media.
Heidi Ann Horton was born in Los Angeles in 1971. Horton and her twin sister, Heather, were unusually tall for girls their age—Heidi was 6’1″ when she started ninth grade—making them attractive to the basketball coach at Palos Verdes High School. Speaking to The Buzz Magazines, a Houston lifestyle magazine, in 2024, Horton recalled a coach stopping her and Heather in the hallway.
“‘Oh my gosh, how tall are you?'” Horton recalled the coach asking her as he encouraged her to sign up for basketball. “Heather came running home, excited, and I was just like, nah. I had already signed up to play volleyball.”
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Heidi Burge #34, Forward Center for the University of Virginia Cavaliers looks straight at her twin sister Heather Burge #30 during the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament Final Four Championship game against the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers on 31st March 1991 at the Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The Tennessee Lady Volunteers won the game and championship 70 – 67.
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“This game isn’t about paying $50 a ticket.”
But sign up, she did. Along with Heather, Horton fell in love with basketball and powered the Palos Verdes Sea Kings to a championship. The Burge’s story was later turned into a 2002 Disney Channel Original Movie, Double Teamed, which dramatizes their time in high school. Both sisters earned full scholarships to the University of Virginia, where they played with future WNBA star and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley and took the Cavaliers to three straight NCAA Women’s Final Four tournaments. In 1991, the duo was recognized by Guiness World Records as the world’s tallest female twins, a record later broken in 2004.
“If I didn’t always have another person around as tall as me, I don’t know what I’d do,” Heather said of her sister before UVA took on Stanford in 1990.
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After college, the Burges went overseas to play women’s basketball in Europe, one of the only avenues for women’s players to continue their careers. After finishing playing in Greece, Horton signed with the Los Angeles Sparks of the newly-formed WNBA. She made her debut with the Sparks in 1997 before being taken second by the Washington Mystics in the 1998 WNBA expansion draft. As a 26-year-old who was the centerpiece of a brand-new Mystics team in a burgeoning league, Horton took to the down-to-earth nature of the early W.
“This game isn’t about paying $50 a ticket,” Burge told the Washington Post in 1998. “It’s not just people from politics and wealth, like the men’s game. We cater to the younger crowd. They’re almost a part of our team. We sign autographs, we hang around after the game, we don’t get ushered in and out in limousines.”
Heidi Burge #34, Forward and Center for the Los Angeles Sparks prepares to make a free throw shot during the WNBA Eastern Conference basketball game against the Charlotte Sting on 21st July 1997 at the Charlotte Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States The Charlotte Sting won the game 75 – 64.
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Moving to Houston
Horton retired from the WNBA in 1999 after a career-ending back injury. She would later say that her biggest disappointment was that she never got the chance to play against or with her sister. Heather Burge played for a single season for the Sacramento Monarchs in 1999.
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After the end of basketball career, Horton moved to Houston and had a short stint as a color commentator for the Houston Comets. She married Patrick Horton after meeting him through mutual friends. Horton turned down a fulltime color commentating job with the Comets in order to start a family, but she didn’t stay far from basketball. Horton became a physical therapist specializing in back injuries and founded Hoops School, a basketball program for Houston-area youth. There, she was known as “Coach Heidi.”
“When you had the kind of coaching I did, you have to work really hard,” Horton told the Buzz Magazines in 2024. “But I also want to give a lot of credit to my coaches. Now I get to give the golden nuggets of wisdom to the kids I coach.”
She considered coaching a way to pass the torch to the next generation of women’s hoops stars.
“Second graders, fifth graders, they listen. That’s the biggest reward in your whole life,” Horton said in 2024. “I had so many people pour into me, and I get to just pour it right out. That’s the torch.”
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