Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges Women's Golf

Burton is the senior women's administrator for the department and during her career at CMS has helped increase the number of women's sports from six to 11. She served 31 years as women's basketball coach and has also served as volleyball and interim women's tennis coach. Burton lives in Claremont and has three sons: John, Todd, and Michael.

Keilee Bessho enters her second season as the head coach of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's golf program in 2025-26, and her fourth with the program overall.  In her first season as the head coach, Bessho led the Athenas to a third-place finish at the 2025 NCAA Division III Championships, tying the second-highest finish in program history. CMS started out below the cutline after the first round was played in difficult weather conditions, but then made a rapid rise up the leaderboard and earned the third-place trophy.  Prior to becoming the head coach, Bessho served for two seasons as an assistant coach with the CMS women's golf program under Head Coach Jodie Burton, earning the National Assistant Coach of the Year Award from the Women's Golf Coaches Association in her debut season in 2022-23. Bessho helped CMS finish third at the NCAA Division III Championships in 2022-23 in her first season as an assistant coach with the program, while helping the Athenas establish several new scoring records. CMS had the lowest single-round score ever (-5) at the Claremont Classic in the fall, then had the lowest 54-hole score ever (-8) at the SCIAC Championships in the spring. Individually, the Athenas also had the first two single-round 67s in program history from Stella Cheng and Esther Lee, with Lee earning hers on the final round of the SCIAC Championship to set a league record with a -10 over 54 holes. Lee was also named the WGCA Freshman of the Year, while Lee and Cheng both earned All-America honors.  In her second season, Bessho helped CMS to its first SCIAC Championship in five years, taking the 2024 title with wins over the No. 2 and No. 7 ranked teams in the nation. She also helped the Athenas break the program's single-round scoring record (280, -8), the three-round scoring record (856, -8), and the individual scoring record (66) Bessho joined the Athenas after a successful stint at Redlands as both a player and a coach. She has served as an assistant coach with the Bulldogs for three years, and helped the team to a No. 2 national ranking during the 2021-22 season.  As a player, Bessho was a second-team All-American and All-West Region selection for the Bulldogs. She earned a 3.88 GPA as a philosophy major and earned Scholar-Athlete and Academic All-SCIAC distinction. As a senior in 2019, she earned a 13th place finish at the NCAA Division III Championship with a four-round total of 308, which was the lowest score for the Bulldogs, who finished in 10th place as a team.   Since graduating from Redlands, Bessho has gone on to earn her master's degree in philosophy from Long Beach State, earning a spot on the Graduate Dean's List, while also serving as a graduate teaching assistant and a golf shop assistant at Glendora Country Club. She is currently pursuing her PhD in philosophy from UC Riverside.