Rob Burke reflects on UNCW, career on coaching podcast
Some interesting insight on the adversity the program experienced in 2020
I’m really glad I came across this podcast over the weekend, as former UNCW interim coach and assistant Rob Burke joined David Kaplan on ‘Beyond the Box Score.’
The conversation covers everything from Burke’s playing days under his father, Bob Burke, at Chowan to his time working up the coaching ladder with stops at Limestone, Spartanburg Methodist and beyond.
Listen to ‘Beyond the Box Score’ here
Of interest for Seahawk fans is the portion (starting at 59:30) where Burke goes in-depth on his path to UNCW, and of course, when he took over as interim coach.
“That, to me, probably emotionally, psychologically just a lot of different emotions,” Burke said. “That was probably the hardest thing I’ve had to go through in my life, all together, because I knew what type of human being C.B. McGrath was, how good of a person he was, but at the same time, we just weren’t getting it done.”
The Seahawks were 5-14 overall and 0-6 in the CAA, mired in an 11-game losing streak on Monday, Jan. 13, 2020, when Athletic Director Jimmy Bass gathered the team in the film room to announce the change at about 5 p.m.
“So, I’m standing there and I tell our team, ‘I don’t know why we’re in this position; God has put us all here for a reason, and we’ve got to figure it out, man. We’ve got to try to stay together,’” Burke said. “I just leaned on past experiences of just trying to motivate kids.
“When they made that change, man, it was gut-wrenching, to be honest with you. Just different adversities that I had to go through, had to go through with our staff, had to go through with our players.”
Burke said he didn’t — and hasn’t — ask why he was chosen to lead the program. It’s likely his experience at Spartanburg Methodist, where he went 112-67 as head coach, gave him the edge.
Still, it was a whirlwind of emotions — dealing with the dismissal of his boss and worrying about how the players would handle the move. He gathered the team for another meeting at 10 p.m. that night to ensure everyone was all-in for the rest of the season.
That left UNCW with two practices to prepare for first-place Hofstra, and on Jan. 16, the Seahawks nearly pulled off the upset before falling 63-61 in front of a reenergized Trask Coliseum crowd.
“Tough, tough loss because, gosh, man,” he said. “You want to talk about some guys playing hard, just trying to do everything they can to win a ballgame.”
Two days later, on Jan. 18, Northeastern led by 16 points with 9:58 remaining, before UNCW showed the kind of fight that had been missing in rallying for a 76-74 overtime victory.
“We just tried to tighten the screws down on our execution, we tried to tighten the screws down on our philosophy defensively, and we just needed some luck, to be honest with you,” Burke said. “We needed something like Hofstra to go right, something at Northeastern to go right, so our kids could end up having a little juice to them. The big one was, we were able to practice for five days after those two games.”
Burke went 5-8 as the interim coach, with clear improvements in effort and defense over the rest of the season, including a big road win at Charleston.
And although he didn’t ultimately get the job, he’s proud of what he accomplished over his six-week run in Wilmington.
“Everybody could have just threw their hands up and walked out, went into the portal,” Burke said. “We were able to keep the group together, we were able to reenergize them a little bit, and we were able to find a way to win some tough games and reenergize our fanbase. At the end of the day, I wasn’t their choice at UNC Wilmington, and I’m OK with that; I can look myself in the mirror and know that … I had a great job right there in front of me, and I took it and ran with it.”
Through it all, he said, he focused on doing right by the players — as did assistants Jackie Manuel and Doug Esleeck.
“It happened so quick, we all tried to say, ‘OK, the student welfare of these kids is most important thing. Whatever your feelings are personally, whatever’s happened here, we’ve got to take it all and put it over here,’” Burke said. “Those 12 guys in the locker room who we all have great relationships with … their well-being, their mindset mentally, that’s a traumatizing thing to go through. To go through that, we all just came together, to be honest with you. It wasn’t easy; it was tough, and we came together in it. Doug is a great man of faith, Jackie is a great man of faith. We just stayed together as a group.”
There’s plenty of great stuff in the conversation between Burke and Kaplan, but one thing missing is a discussion of his new job as the head coach at Chowan, following in the footsteps of his father’s legendary career building that program.
He was hired on May 3 — just after the podcast was recorded — to bring an end to a trying 14 months that saw his time at UNCW end, the death of his father and the struggle of finding work during COVID-19. He ended up at Division III Colorado College for the season, helping a new friend in Jeff Conarroe.
Naturally, that sort of year will cause a man to reevaluate his life, but here’s what Burke said he took from the adversity.
At the end of the day, man, when you go down the road and look at what you’re doing, I just, I have this passion to try to accomplish something with young men and help young men. We need more leaders, man. We need more leaders in our society; we need more people that can teach young men what it’s like to be a husband, what it’s like to be a father, what it’s like to be a leader and make tough decisions and to try to keep everybody on the same page. We need more men to try to help keep a team together. You see where our society is at now, we all know what’s going on and all the different adversities we have in this county. We need more coaches to lead young men.
When I step back and I really look at it, that’s important to me. That’s important to me, to be considered a leader, to be able to help young men get themselves out of certain situations to where they can be successful. Everybody doesn’t have all the advantages I had when I was a kid. My mom was a leader, my dad was a leader; they taught me how to lead, they taught me how to handle adversity.
I get to that point and I get ready to go across that line to do something else, and something pulls me back in; I can’t quite put my finger on it. We’re going to work out today at 1:15, man, and I’m going to be soaking wet by 1:30. I just love being on the floor; I just love seeing guys learn different facets of the game and have success with it.