JOE BURKE – SKIDMORE COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 941

Website – https://skidmoreathletics.com/sports/mens-basketball

Email – jburke@skidmore.edu

Twitter/X – @SkidmoreBball

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Joe Burke has been the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Skidmore College since 2010 amassing an overall record of 200-147.

Under Burke, Skidmore has won five Liberty League conference championships (2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2019) four Liberty League regular season titles (2015, 2016, 2017, 2019) and made six NCAA tournament appearances (2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019). Burke has also coached 27 All-Liberty League players and two All-Americans.

Prior to Skidmore, Burke spent six years as an assistant coach at the U.S. Naval Academy after four seasons on the Cornell University staff.

Burke began his coaching career in 1996 as an assistant coach at his high school alma mater Bishop Eustace Preparatory School in New Jersey before making the leap to college coaching as an assistant at Philadelphia University from 1998 to 2000.

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Have pen and paper handy as you listen to this episode with Joe Burke, Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Skidmore College.

What We Discuss with Joe Burke

• Growing up with a brother who pushed and challenged him in all sports
• Being a multi sport athlete in high school and college
• “Having parental guidance or some kind of figures in your life that push you through really enables you to move forward.”
• The story behind why his high school coach, Bill Lang, Sr. started calling him “coach”.
• Getting his first coaching job as an assistant at his alma mater Bishop Eustace High School in New jersey
• How Billy Lang, Jr helped him get his first job college job working for Herb Magee at Philadelphia Textile
• “That was the biggest thing. You just got to learn, man, this is a process, nobody gets this stuff overnight.”
• “Sometimes you just got to keep your mouth shut, you know what I mean? Just work, do what the guy tells you to do. And I think that was the greatest thing for me. I just kind of soaked in everything that Coach Magee did and did what he asked because I don’t know anything.”
• Taking an unpaid assistant job at Cornell with Steve Donahue
• “Now I’m growing. Now I’m gaining knowledge. Now I’m comfortable in that environment. Now I feel like I got a leg to stand on because I’m building a resume.”
• Getting the chance to work for his high school teammate Billy Lang, Jr. at the Naval Academy
• “The leaders you’re around at that institution are like nothing you’ll experience in your life.”
• “When you graduate from the Naval Academy, you got no choice but to be tough.”
• The opportunity to become the Head Coach at Skidmore
• “I went headfirst into this thing, man. I slept in the office, I put everything I had into it.”
• “I think the breathing room that these kids have. allows them to get the overall college experience and do more things with their life.”
• “There’s something about your quality of life in this profession, and you can certainly have that at Division III. You’re working just as hard. You’re just working a little smarter, and you got a little more time. That’s it. That’s really what it comes down to.”
• Relying on and trusting his network when it comes to recruiting
• “I consider myself nowadays more of a general manager, even more than a coach, because I’m all about putting the right pieces together.”
• “I consider myself nowadays more of a general manager, even more than a coach, because I’m all about putting the right pieces together.”
• “The leadership in the locker room to me is everything, especially at this level.”
• “The most important piece that you need to have as a recruit at this level is to be self sufficient.”
• “Players have to be resilient enough to understand that this is going to be a grind.”
• Why he values Skidmore Alumni Night so much

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THANKS, JOE BURKE

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TRANSCRIPT FOR JOE BURKE – SKIDMORE COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 941

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with, eventually, my co-host Jason Sunkle, but I am pleased to be joined in the moment by Joe Burke, head men’s basketball coach at Skidmore College. Joe, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:18] Joe Burke: Mike, thanks for having me, buddy. Pleasure, man. I’m happy to be here. I’m excited to talk for a little hoops for a while.

[00:00:23] Mike Klinzing: Awesome.

[00:00:24] Jason Sunkle: And I’m here too, Mike. I’m here. I literally got here just in time. I got here just in time. Jumped in right as we’re starting. So love it.

[00:00:33] Mike Klinzing: I’ll do the introductions then.  The life of having kids, Jason, right? Joe, Jason. Jason, Joe.

[00:00:37] Jason Sunkle: Hi, Joe. Hi, Joe. Nice to meet you.

[00:00:39] Joe Burke: Nice to meet you. Absolutely.

[00:00:41] Mike Klinzing: All right. So Joe, we’re going to jump in and start out with going back to when you were a kid. Tell me a little bit about how you got into the game of basketball as a kid. What were some of your first experiences? What made you fall in love with it?

[00:00:53] Joe Burke: Yeah. I mean, I think it was in my family. I mean, my father was a very good athlete and he I’m one of five. So I had an older brother and that’s always an advantage I say, cause you know, you got somebody pushing you along the way. And as kids we were into everything. I mean, we, we played every sport possible.

And as we got a little bit older you start figuring out what you’re good at, what you’re not good at. And you know, we got it down to, my brother and I got it down to baseball, basketball, and soccer. So we were both free sport athletes coming, coming into high school. And did that all four years in high school, which was a great experience.

My brother turned out to be a heck of a baseball player which made me want to be a heck of a basketball player, . So we didn’t give up on either, but when it went to the baseball diamond he would, he would persevere. And then when it went to the basketball court, I was going to make sure, even though I was three years younger, I was going to persevere.

So. I just pushed really hard and I love the game so much. And he drove me you know, we can get into this later, but unfortunately my brother passed a few years ago, but he was a great inspiration. My father and my mother were just so supportive. My mom was the mom that didn’t miss a game. And my father was the coach and he drove us there and pushed us and it was tough on us. And he did that with my three younger sisters as well. They were all athletes in college as well. So yeah, so we that, that’s how it kind of came about. And then as I got through my, I had an awesome high school experience. It was terrific.

And then you had to get it down to two when you, when you went, when I went to college, I wanted to play both. Ursinus, which is obviously a smaller division three liberal arts school, but was able to play two sports there, which was great. So. You know, it came from my family more than anything else. You know, you have siblings, I think that’s awesome.

You have parents that are on board. As you know, having parental guidance or some kind of figures in your life that push you through really enables you to move forward. You know, to have success and drive in athletics, and I had that. I had that support and I’m thankful for it because, obviously I’m not sitting here today if it wasn’t for my upbringing.

I credit that for everything and the people, my parents were able to put me around the coaches and obviously my family, we were super competitive and we just got after each other. So we all never wanted to stop. We all it was great. It was a tough environment.

[00:03:24] Mike Klinzing: Did you have a favorite battle? Do you have a game, a memory, a specific something in any sport that when you think about that relationship?

[00:03:33] Joe Burke: I’ll tell you, I’ll give you a funny story. It was my brother. I’m the only Philadelphia. I grew up in Jersey, right over the bridge from Philly.

So we were Philly guys. But I’m probably the only Philly guy that’s a Dallas Cowboy fan. Okay. That’s like, if there’s one thing you can’t be in Philly, it’s a Cowboy fan. But like what I’ll, I mean, I’ll never forget it. I was super young and we were just outside in the snow. Playing football, tackling each other, just going after each other.

And he was the Eagles. And I’m like, well, F that I’m the Cowboys then. And, and we just went after, we nose to nose, put helmets on. And from that point on, and it had just so happened you’re talking late seventies, early eighties, so the Cowboys were pretty darn good. So it’s just from that point on, I’m like, all right, now I’m a Cowboys fan.

What are you going to do about it? So that, that was kind of, that’s kind of how we were. We were so darn competitive. And yeah, so, but that, that was a moment I’ll never forget in my life. I’m like, all right. And to this day, I’m still a Cowboys fan. I get so much grief from everyone in my family. And every, and one of my friends, but that’s one of the little nuggets that nobody really knows.

I’m a Philly guy that’s a cowboy fan. I’m a Philly guy through and through whether it’s the Sixers, the Phillies the Flyers, all, every Philly team, but I’m a cowboy fan because of that moment. And I’ll never forget. It’s just one of the many battles we had. We obviously had tons of battles on the court.

As well in our backyard we had a hoop in the driveway, which was great. And we I will never forget the first time I actually beat my brother on one on one, and then he never beat me again. And it was great. That was a great moment as well. So, but like I said, we drove each other and we just had the competitiveness we had amongst one another you know, I think helped make him successful he was a D1 baseball player at Drexel and helped me be two sport athlete in college and continue my coaching career.

So. That’s one of the many stories, but it’s always a fun one because no one can actually believe I’m a cowboy fan.

[00:05:30] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s funny because, so I grew up, I only had one sister, never had a brother. Obviously, I had lots of friends growing up who had brothers. And in a lot of ways, I was always jealous of those brother households that it just seemed like brothers were constantly going at it, but also pushing one another in different areas.

Plus you always had somebody that you could play with, somebody that you could take on. And I always looked at that and I was like, man, that would be really cool to be able to have a brother. And then in my own family now, I have one son and two daughters. So I, I’ve never really experienced the brother phenomenon firsthand in my own house.

So any, anybody that. Talks about it similar to you. I think they had that experience where it’s just, man, the competitiveness between the two and the rivalry, and yet the tremendous amount of. Love and respect that brothers who compete the way that you and your brother did and the way lots of brothers do I think is Something that it’s just it’s irreplaceable in terms of developing yourself as an athlete.  I don’t think there’s any doubt about that

[00:06:32] Joe Burke: No, a hundred percent. And again, like I said, I credit so much of what I’ve become to him because he it was those battles now, obviously They weren’t always, they didn’t end well. Somebody was coming in hurt, damaged, crying and my mother would be there to take care of us.

But you know, my father was the type of guy that’d be like, okay, well, what are they doing? Well, they’re kicking the crap out of each other out back. And I’m just going to let them do it right now.

[00:07:02] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, exactly. Dads tend to have a little bit of a different perspective on that than moms do.

There’s no question about that. Tell me about the two sport athlete part. in college in terms of how you manage your time, just what that experience was like, because it’s obviously something that it was probably rare when you did it, even more rare today. Just tell me a little bit about what that experience was like.

[00:07:29] Joe Burke: It was tough. I will tell you, I enjoyed every, like, I think, guys, I didn’t want to give anything up. Like, I wanted to play soccer too again. I just couldn’t do it. There was just no time that was just beyond what was capable. You know, unless you’re Deion Sanders, I was then those things are not, you can’t do it.

[00:07:47] Mike Klinzing: Helicopter to games.

[00:07:50] Joe Burke: That’s it. That’s it. So he we, I did it because I didn’t want to give anything up. So I told my parents I was going to focus on two sports. And even when I got to Ursinus, I wanted to do other things. I pledged a fraternity too.

So like, I’ll never forget. I was going at one point of the year, I was going to basketball practice in the afternoon. And then at let’s say this was January or February. So I’m going to basketball practice in the afternoon. We had night baseball practice in the gym because you just, you have your preseason up in the Northeast, everything’s inside.

So in their practice and I didn’t want to miss it. So I’m like, you know what, I’m going to go to baseball. And so I just stayed, I told my basketball coaches knew what was going on. So I stayed for baseball and then at one point I was actually pledging a fraternity. So it was like, my parents were like, dude, when are you going to study?

I’m like, I’m trying to figure that out. Yeah. That’s what I have nightmares of making sure I got my degree. Now I absolutely did. Okay. So let’s get that clear. But like the day was so filled. I literally was gone basketball, baseball, pledging, and then holy moly, then try and get some books in and then go to bed.

So it was quite the experience, but I loved it. I loved it. To be completely honest, my baseball career probably as a player ended up being better than my basketball career. We just had a better team and a better situation. But yeah, I loved every bit of it, every minute of it. And like I said to you guys, I didn’t want to give anything up.

I was at that point in my life, I loved basketball the most. But I love being an athlete and playing and being competitive and again, I think that’s what drove me to get in this profession. It’s just, it’s something that I cherished and some of my fondest memories are playing flag football with my fraternity brothers and how competitive and how fun that was.

So you know, some great times. A lot of time on the field in the court and probably should have spent a little more time in the classroom. But I think my parents knew what I was signing up for. I was going to get my degree, obviously academics were important in my family. And I don’t want to belittle that at all, but I think they knew that’s what I wanted and that’s what made me happy was playing sports and doing as much as I could.

So  kept doing it for as long as I could.

[00:10:15] Jason Sunkle: Joe, would you say that you were the Cardale, the original Cardale Jones? Yes. You remember that? You remember that quote? You know what quote I’m about to pull out? Why should we have to go to class if we’re here to play football? We ain’t come to play school.  Classes are pointless.

[00:10:29] ] Joe Burke: I love it. Yes I do. I love it. That’s good stuff. I love it. That’s good stuff. Yeah. I just I remember like so many conversations with my teachers like I was in, again I told Mike earlier, I’m probably too much of an open book, but this is what it is. Like, I just used to go and have to talk to my teachers and say, look, this is where I’m at.

Like, I really want, I’m here. I’m trying my hardest just so you know, but like all this stuff is a priority in my life. And they’re looking at me like this dude’s crazy, but that was the reality of who I was. And I knew I was going to graduate. I knew I was going to get enough done, but athletics and being part of stuff like that was such an important piece of my life.

That I just didn’t want to give up because I knew when college was over, it was all going to be done and I never wanted it to end, but it was going to eventually.

[00:11:14] Mike Klinzing: Was coaching was what you wanted to do while you were in school?

[00:11:18] Joe Burke: You know it’s funny we can get into this a little bit, but when I was a player in high school, I had an awesome high school basketball experience.

I played at Bishop Eustace in New Jersey. Right over the bridge from Philly and Pennsylvania. Great, great area for basketball. South Jersey, a great area for it. My coach, Bill Lang Sr., and he’s a Hall of Fame coach. Maybe another big reason why I’m here today, because he taught me so much. His son, Billy, is a very good friend of mine.

He’s the head coach at St. Joe’s in Philly. Billy’s been around for a while, but we play together. And it’s funny, he was two years, Billy was two years ahead of me, so he was the starting point guard as a senior, I was the backup as a sophomore, but his father and I had a great relationship, so like, as a junior senior, we had great, great experiences and won South Jersey titles I played those great St. Anthony teams with Danny Hurley on it in the state championship one year and got absolutely smashed, but it was okay, it was a heck of an experience, but. But his father used to call me because I used to like stop practice and like ask so many questions. Be like, why are we doing this? And so he just started calling me coach.

And I’m like, you know what? I kind of like the ring of that. So that was my thing. And I always wanted to be involved. I didn’t know the Avenue at the time. Like I knew I wanted to play and I wanted to play as long as I could. I knew I wanted to be involved. But at that point, even in college, I’m like, yeah, I’m not sure what to do with this? Like, do people actually you don’t study, like you see the guys on TV making obviously at that time the money was different, but you just don’t know if it’s a realistic situation. And again, me going back to my parents and saying. Hey, I got this degree. We spent this money, but I’m going to go coach.

You know what I mean? Like I didn’t sit too well with them initially. But anyhow, so no, the answer to your question is no. I knew I wanted to be involved. It took me a year, not even a year, a couple of months. Of actually real world experience where I realized that I can’t be separated from this. And I knew if I did coach a sport, I wanted it to be basketball because I love the involvement and I love the strategy of the game more than the others that I played.

So to answer your question, I didn’t know exactly. I knew I wanted to stay involved. But again, it was literally probably three, four months after I graduated that I realized, okay, I need to stay involved. And that’s when I got my first job, which was an assistant high school coaching job at my alma mater, at Bishop Eustace for Bill Lang Sr.  And he kind of took me under his wing from there.

[00:13:55] Mike Klinzing: Do you have a real job in those intervening Three or four months. And is that what kind of was like eye opening?

[00:13:59] Joe Burke: I was telling a story the other day, I took one of those financial jobs like these guys come in and they recruit these guys.

Like, Oh, this guy can talk. He could be, he could work for us. So they fly me around and train me. And then like, they tell you like, well, listen, you’re, you’re, you’re a commission only type of guy right now. And I’m like, what? I’m like so he’s like, you got to make calls and you got to do this.

And I’m like, okay I’ll, I’ll see how it goes. And I’ll never forget. I called my uncle. I don’t know if you guys have ever been to the Jersey Shore at all, either one of you? I have not. No, so my, my uncle owns a liquor store in New Jersey right outside of Ocean City, which is one of the biggest places, family resorts on the beach.

And he has this huge liquor store and does really, really well. And this company was like, well, you got to call the people, you know. And try and see if you’re going to sell them, you’re going to, you’re going to invest their money. You’re going to, you’re going to sell them these products, all this kind of stuff.

So I’ll never forget. I called my uncle and I’m like, listen, this is what I’m doing. And he stopped me like two minutes and he goes, I’ll love you. You know, I’ll do anything for you, but I’m just going to tell you something. You ain’t going to have this job in like two months. So I ain’t giving you my money.

I said, fair enough. And he was a spot on. That’s good. Exactly right. Two months later, I was out. I did, I tried something else. Yeah. And Dan was like then that’s when the conversation came up with like, Hey, with, with my old high school coach, Hey, do you, do you want to come help us? And be part of this and I’m like, okay, great.

So my first gig officially was assistant high school basketball coach slash freshman coach. And I started substitute teaching and I didn’t have a certificate, but you didn’t need that in private school. So I literally was living with my mother. Was teaching substitute teaching at the Catholic school that I grew up going to in Runnymede, New Jersey substitute whenever somebody was out and coaching high school basketball and that was in 1996 The fall of 1996 when that started and it’s been a long road.

[00:16:13] Mike Klinzing: Did you know right away? I mean when you started coaching, did you know right away? Hey, this is it. This is what I want to do.

[00:16:20] Joe Burke: Yeah, I did. I did that because you know what? I felt just as competitive as if I was on the floor. And I loved it. You know what I mean? It just, it was like, this was, this was the energy I needed in my life.

And then I started studying more and understanding the game. As you just see the game at a different level as a coach than you did as a player And you start looking at it differently, and you’re not looking at it as a fan. So yeah, so as time went on, and I had, again, I had great people around me to guide me, and I’m like I think I want to do this.

And we kind of went, and that was my first two years, was assistant coach, and we did really well. I got to coach some Division I players that were in the program. Got to meet a bunch of people. I would do the camp circuit in the summertime, go out and work for the hoop group and Rob Kennedy, who helped guide me he’s been around for a long time and, and running the camp industry and I did that whole circuit and it was just a great experience and that kind of got the ball rolling for me.

[00:17:17] Mike Klinzing: What was it like to work with your high school coach and kind of go behind the curtain of the program that you were a player in? How did you approach that relationship? How’d you guys make that work? Because I think about the guys that I played for and whatever, I’m 54 years old, I’m still calling them coach and there’s still that reverence.  So just how’d you guys sort of navigate that relationship piece of it?

[00:17:40] Joe Burke: Yeah, that was tough. I’m like, like you, I called him coach and to this day, I still call coach when I see him just out of pure respect. I mean, he deserves that title, but it was interesting. The things that are said behind closed doors and how you analyze players and how you have to he taught me so many things, but really the biggest thing was how to deal with different personalities.

Yeah. And that all those conversations were, he was always prepared, but we would always talk about how we’re going to deal with different people individually to make them have success. You know, besides the fact that he was a great basketball coach on the floor X’s and O’s wise, but I think that was the biggest thing for me.

We would sit in that office and we would sit in there for hours afterwards, and just kick it and eat pizza, and back in the day, you could even have a beer in the office, you know what I mean, before no one would say nothing to you, and we would just kick it, and it was interesting to see, like, he would talk about these players that I And again, what you say on the floor to them, you have to be careful and make sure you’re saying the right things.

But when you’re behind closed doors with your assistant coaches, you really, you open up and the stuff and the banner that goes back and forth about what’s good, what’s bad, what he does well. And that was all so exciting to me because now, like, I was like he was opening up a whole new world for like, okay, there’s more to this than just the X’s and O’s of basketball.

There’s the strategy, there’s the personality, there’s dealing with these guys and, and understand where they’re coming from and how they’re being raised, what their parental situation is. So it was, that was a cool dynamic for me. And I owe so much of what my career is today because of him, because of Coach Lang, he was the guy that coached me in high school and gave me my first gig.

[00:19:24] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. I mean, the stories of sort of that first job and how guys get to it. And there’s a lot of people that are in a similar position to you where they go back to their alma mater, whether it’s a high school or a college, and that kind of gets them kicked off and jumpstarts the career.

And so when you were going through that experience there, did that make you, what were you thinking about in terms of levels? Like, In other words, were you saying, Hey, like, I really liked this high school thing. And then the college opportunity just kind of falls in your lap. Were you looking at it going, man, I don’t know if I want to teach all day and then go and coach, I’d like to be maybe more full time basketball.

What was the thought process? And then how do you end up getting the opportunity at Philadelphia university?

[00:20:11] Joe Burke: Yeah, so again, it was all about the people I’m surrounded, I was surrounded by. So as much as I owe Coach Lang Sr. I owe Billy Lang Jr. Who, like I said, is, as you guys know, is the head coach of St. Joe’s right now. So, Billy kind of chartered the waters for, I mean, chartered the boat for me. He created the route for me to get to where I wanted to go. He worked at the high school as well, and then he worked for Coach Magee, who is a Naismith Hall of Fame coach, and you know, at the Philadelphia Textile, Philadelphia University.

It changed names a couple times, but he’s one of the all time winningest coaches in the history of college basketball, and Maybe the best shooting coach I’ve ever seen. I know he’s considered maybe the best ever. But so Billy at the time was Coach Magee’s assistant at what was then Philly Textile.

So Philly, and while he’s at Philly Textile, I’m working for Bill Sr. at Bishop Eustace. So we stay, I got, Billy would come back and we would talk and Billy is a driven dude, man. People don’t really get to know these guys. You know, they’re especially fans.  They’re so critical wins and losses, like that’s as good a basketball coach as there is out there. I mean that, and he was so driven and I loved what he was doing. And I just used to watch from afar when he would come back from the collegiate stuff to talk to his father and I would be involved in, and obviously we were close friends as well, because we were teammates he had charted a path and I was like, you know what, I could see myself doing this. So the second year I’m coaching high school,  Billy leaves Philly Textile and goes, I believe at that time, takes the job at LaSalle University for Speedy Morris.

Another Hall of Fame, all time great, big five coach. So the job opens at Textile and he comes to me and says, Hey I know I’ve introduced you to Coach Magee before. He’s a great dude. Like, if you really want to do this is the guy you want to get involved with because he knows everybody.

He’s got NBA guys coming to the gym. At the time, Barkley was with the Sixers, I believe, at that point, or was with the Sixers, and Barkley would always come back and work with him, and all these NBA guys would come back, and it was just a great connection. He’s like, and he runs a great program, you guys are going to have success, and he’s going to teach you so much.

I said I’d love to do it, and, but he just said coach is a different dude. He’s not like my dad, just so you know. He’s a funny dude. He’s great. He’s witty, but he’s a big time guy. I’m like, okay, that’s great. I’d love to get involved so. You know, I get connected with Coach Magee and expressed my interest, and he’s like, okay, well let’s do an interview.

I said, great. I said, this is, so, this is 1998. And he says to me, he says when can you come? I’m like, whenever you want, coach, I’m there. And he goes, all right, you’re going to meet me on Thursday night at six o’clock, and I said, okay, well the pub, he’s like, yeah, we’re going to have a couple beers and we’re going to sit at the bar and we’re going to talk.

And I said, oh, that great. You know, like, I don’t, at that point in my life, I’m not sure I had a credit card yet. You’re like, we’re off to a good start, man. Making sure up have beers. We’re good. Going to take the bill. So, yeah, so I go and I meet him at the at the bar and we kick it for a while And we just got along great and he called me the next day and says the job’s yours So now all of a sudden I look up and you know I’m at Philly textile working for the best one of the best coaches in the country and Herb Magee and going to get the experience of a lifetime and the education of a lifetime All knowing that those jobs at that time pay very few dollars.

So again, you’re trying to manipulate how you’re going to have success in this profession. And it goes back to when we were talking about with my parents, like, all right, so here we are, year three out of college. haven’t really gotten a real paycheck yet. What are we doing, Joe? You know what I mean?

Type of thing. And I’m like, well I’m committed to this and this is what I want to do in my life. And and that’s when I started with coach Magee and boy, was that a heck of an experience. I mean, that dude just wins. He’s got so much respect. That was an enjoyable time.

I will tell you that because you know, again, 1998 to 2000, things were a lot different then. And I wasn’t making any money. I was scrambling. I picked up a couple part time jobs. in the city you know, that I would work in the morning. I’d go in from like 9 to 12 working in part time jobs, and then I’d go over to the office, and we had one office together.

It was me and him, and we’d talk hoops, watch video, and he had one of those kickback putting machines, if you remember those, and we would just sit there and we’d grab a couple putters, and some golf balls, and we’d Put golf balls in the thing, they’d shoot back. We’d talk hoops and watch videos.

So it was it was awesome. It was a great, great experience. And again, another guy that taught me so much.

[00:25:23] Mike Klinzing: What was the difference for you high school versus college coaching? I mean, obviously you’ve been at the college level now for a long time, but when you think back to your first experience as a college coach, how do you compare the two experiences?

[00:25:38] Joe Burke: Just that these, every one of those guys were dudes, man, like the players, like you had to get guys. You know, high school you have a couple guys that you just you got some good players, but you also got some pieces and some guys that are not going to be collegiate players. Like, at that level, at that school, I mean, those dudes were pros.

Like, we were coaching pros. We literally had, I think at the time I was there, probably three or four guys that went on to play overseas. So the recruit you’re getting involved. Now it’s your first rodeo with recruiting. So now you’re getting out and we were trying to be dominant with that program in the Philly area.

So we’re now I’m learning that aspect of things, learning how to do a home visit with parents and kids and I’m at this point, I’m still only what, 24 years old. And it’s an intimidating process. You don’t want to mess up. You’re with a guy that is incredibly respected.

One of the best around runs a great program. You got to do your job. You’re literally, I was the, there was two other assistants, but they were even less part-time than I was . So I was kind of the guy that had the responsibility, so you had to learn quick. You had to figure out the structure, how things worked, how the recruiting game worked.

But then I could just lean on him. His guidance was terrific and his name was terrific. So if I I showed up in a gym with a Philadelphia textile, which I think the following years when went, it changed over to Philadelphia University. If I showed up in the gym, people knew about our program and our school, so it was so well respected. So that was the biggest difference. It was just dealing with the recruiting issue and dealing with, like, every dude on the court was a player. And this is these were scholarship guys. These were, you’re going from high school to that, it’s a big change.

And you want them to respect you. At that time. So like I just I was careful with how much I said, cause I these guys know, I mean, they’re great players and they’re good dudes and I’m not much older than them. So I just worked, you know what I mean? I put in the time, I showed up every day, spent a ton of hours there whether it was rebounding, teaching them something new, if I if they didn’t know something but just working and being there for them.

That was the biggest thing. And you just got to learn, man, this is a process, like nobody gets this stuff overnight. That’s why these guys that get handed positions nowadays in coaching generally don’t succeed because there’s just a huge learning curve with this. I don’t care how good of a player you are, you got to learn this stuff and be around it.

[00:27:56] Mike Klinzing: There’s no doubt about that. I mean, I think that’s, that’s probably, I think one of the biggest misnomers, right? I think it’s gone away to some degree now, but certainly back in that day, you’re talking about guys that, Hey man, if I can play, I can coach. And I can speak to my own experience. I’ve told this story on the podcast that when I got my first coaching job, I was a JV coach at a local high school and I walked in that first day and whatever, I had 12 kids looking at me and really the only thing I knew about coaching was what my high school coach had done because I had had the same high school coach for my entire high school career.

And then I knew what my college coach did. I had him for four years. And so every drill, every offense, every press break, every whatever, the only thing I knew was, you And I was like, well, I was a good player. I’m going to be, I’m going to be a good coach. And I probably was somebody that could have benefited from somebody taking me under their wing and saying, Hey, you got to go out and you got to really learn the game.

Cause I was pretty satisfied just to kind of coast on what was left of my playing career. And when I look back on it now, I think, man, if I could have approached it kind of the way that you were talking about where, Hey, I just have, tons and tons and tons to learn. And I just never, for whatever reason, just never really approached it that way.

I just kind of did my thing and based it off of what I did as a player. And I think it obviously hindered me as a coach when I look at it. And so to be able to be under somebody like Coach Magee, who obviously has a tremendous amount of coaching success and just the knowledge that he possessed and then to be able to share that with you and for you again to be kind of his right hand man and sitting there hitting putts in the office and just talking basketball.

I mean, the learning that you were able to do, I’m sure it was just incredible. Is there something, is there one thing when you think about yourself as a coach today, is there one thing that stands out that you got from that time at Philadelphia University?

[00:29:45] Joe Burke: Well, I’ll tell you, I learned there’s so many, it’s hard to narrow it down, but I mean, obviously, like I said, he’s one of the best shooting coaches that I’ve ever seen. So just watching him work with a guy like he, like, if there was one thing I was like, I was not a great shooter. I was a point guard. I was a pass first point guard in high school and college.

Yeah. And like, just being, like, he fixed my shot. Like, I was like, holy moly, he fixed my shot. I’ve been waiting for someone to fix my shot for a long ass time. Now, now it gets fixed when my career is over. There you go. But, yeah, he was so good at that. But to get back to your point, what you were talking before, I just learned that, like, Sometimes you just got to keep your mouth shut, you know what I mean?

Like just work, like do what the guy tells you to do. And I think that was the greatest thing for me. It was like, I just kind of soaked in everything that he did and did what he asked because I don’t know anything. Like he knows so much more than I do. I’m not telling that dude anything new. So, and I don’t want to embarrass myself because he would definitely call you out on it if you did.

And that’s just the type of dude he was. But he was so good and so confident in what he did that I just learned, like I’m there, so I’ll give you a quick one here. I guess it was my first, might have been my first year or my second year probably late first year.

There was a practice and the practice was going to end at like eight o’clock at night. And I said, coach, I said, listen I have something tonight that I’d like to do. Do you mind if, if we go over a little bit, if I cut out and he said, Joe, what do you got to do? I said, well, I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I met this girl.

And he’s like, he’s like, Oh Christ. I said, yeah. I said, I met this girl when I was traveling with my brother. My brother was on a business trip and I went with him and I met this girl from California when we were in San Francisco and you know, we’ve had this again, you’re talking about no cell phone guys, right?

For sure, yeah, exactly. No FaceTime, nothing, like we’re talking landlines. And I met this girl and you know, I finally convinced her, she had never been to the East Coast before. And I finally convinced her to fly to Philadelphia. She’d never been here and her flight lands at 8:15. And she doesn’t want, I don’t want to be late.

I don’t want to again, this is, these are the times too, where there was no, anybody could go to the gate.

[00:32:18] Mike Klinzing: Right. For sure. You could be right there with the rose.

[00:32:19] Joe Burke: Right there. Like she walked off the plane. I could be right there. He’s like, I’m going to tell you something you can go, but you better marry this girl.

I said, well, that’s a lot of pressure He said go soon sure enough that was my wife and that’s my wife you know 23 years later and she Yeah, I was picking my wife up from San Francisco, but just the look on his face when I asked him to leave early, he’s like, dude, this better be serious. This better be good because you’re not supposed to be leaving.

And I said, I kind of really need to do this. And then I remember telling her the story. I said, I think we have to get married now. Otherwise I can’t go on in this profession.

[00:33:03] Mike Klinzing: That’s good stuff. I won’t have his support going forward. you’re blackballed over an airport pickup. So man, there you go. All right. So next, next Cornell, tell me about how you get to Cornell from Philadelphia Textile at the time.

[00:33:19] Joe Burke: Yeah, so we get so obviously Philly, great basketball city, big five, Coach Magee’s well connected. I get involved with all those coaches because of the different events and just going when you’re that, when you’re doing that, you’re going, I’m going to St. Joe’s and watching Coach Martelli’s team. I’m going to LaSalle and watching Coach Morris team. At the time, I believe Steve Lapis was at Nova. And then Fran Dunphy, who I got to know, And I used to love going to Penn’s practices and just picking up little things from them. And Coach Dunphy, unbelievable basketball coach at the time had an assistant, Steve Donahue.

And Steve was a great dude. And a little bit older than me, also an Ursinus College graduate, so we kind of hit it off. And I would go there and we just developed a relationship. And I kind of leaned on him because he was an assistant at Penn and the Big Five in the Ivy League. And so we formed a relationship.

And year three, so this is crazy timing. So, I get into the summer. I want to say of 2000 and I tell coach Magee, listen, I want to go full time with the hoop group over the summer and Rob Kennedy to really market myself and try and get myself a great opportunity and a great job and, and meet the highest level coaches and get involved with these kids and, and coach them so that I have relationships with these kids that are now going to these big time schools.

So he agreed with me and I was full time there. September comes around, I got to make a decision. Am I going to go, what am I going to do? Am I going to stay with the hoop group? Am I going to go back to Philly textile? And weirdly enough, in September is an odd time for it at that in our business, Steve Donahue is announced as the new Cornell head coach.

The, there was an issue and a health concern with the previous coach. Cornell was looking to go in a different direction. Steve obviously had an unbelievable resume with his time with Penn. At that time, Penn was just incredible. The amount of Ivy League titles they were winning. Steve gets the Cornell job.

He calls me and says, Hey, what do you think? And I said, listen, I’d love to do it. He goes, well, here’s the deal. He goes, I’d love for you to come. But you’re going to be the volunteer coach. The Ivy League only pays two assistant coaches, and the third one has to be a volunteer. That was an Ivy League rule back then.

So you could not get paid. Now, he’s like, we could find you some things to do, to make, to get some money. But it’s going to be a lot of work. We’re going to be really putting in the hours and all that stuff. I said, listen, I know this is what I want to do for a living. I’m but so I’m in, but I need to talk to who at that point was my fiance my wife.

And she had moved guys from San Francisco at that point to New Jersey and was living with me and came here and got a job to help support what I was doing. So I have to go back to the house. Or to our little apartment and say, Vic I got a situation here. I just got offered a division one assistant coaching job for no pay in Ithaca, New York.

And I think I have to do it, but I don’t know how we’re going to do this. We just spoke about it. We talked, how can we do this? I said, she knew how much I love this profession. So, and we were not married at the time. She said to me, so we came to the conclusion that she was going to move back to California, take her previous job back, get prepared for the wedding, and she was going to let me go to Cornell to bust my ass.

To make my way in this profession. So it was hard. It was a difficult decision, but she goes back to Cali. I move up to Ithaca, rent a room in a house. By a blow up mattress knowing that I’m not going to be there, but to sleep a few hours a night. And I just and Steve’s family was in Philadelphia for, again, this is September and they weren’t ready to move yet either.

So me and him literally just were in the office for hours and hours and hours just trying to get this thing right with the two other assistants and make it happen. And again, I’m just not making any money trying to kind of, mooch off him a little bit, to be honest with you.

Like, Hey, you got to help me out. And he was great. He was great. Like we would go eat at the hot food truck all the time. And we would come back to the office because his wife and kids weren’t up yet. So we had all the time in the world together, but again, just another guy that taught me so much. He’s, he, Steve Donahue’s arguably the best human being in this profession, I think. He’s a hell of a hell of a basketball coach. He’s a better person. But he just taught me how to deal with people and how to, and that you could be a good dude in this profession and have success. Cause he just molded me and showed me how to get it done and, and took care of me, man, for lack of a better term.

I’m a young dude with no money, just busting my butt for him to try and make him successful. So that was, that was it. That first year was crazy, man. I had and my wife was home preparing for the wedding. We were getting married in August. So that the first year was a tough one.

It was a huge adjustment for Steve and for me. And we just had to clean so many things up. We kind of reshuffled the deck and brought in a ton of freshmen. But he was so happy with the job that I did. And the way things had worked out that I got married in August and right before that, he had named me as a full time coach.

So after that first year things worked out where I was now going to be on the payroll. I was a full time assistant coach, got married in August. My wife moved to Ithaca. And here we were, and now we were going and trying to get Cornell right.

[00:39:11] Mike Klinzing: What was it like working with the students at Cornell and the high academic world?

[00:39:17] Joe Burke: That, so here you go, here’s another challenge, right? I often, I often say like, I’ve had some really hard job, right? I we, I get to a service academy next, I’m at an Ivy League school, a Division II school that was tough, man, because you got to get Division I players that aren’t, at that point, there’s no, obviously, there’s still no scholarships in the Ivy Leagues, but there’s, Different ways to do it.

But back then it was like, okay, we got to find these kids and Penn and Princeton have dominated this league. And we got to get good enough players to compete with them that want to come to Ithaca, New York and go to Cornell. So that, that was, that was a challenge, man. That was a challenge. It was just recruiting.

Now we, I go from Philadelphia recruiting to holy moly, we’re now national. And we got to go far and wide to find these kids. To separate ourselves and kind of do something a little bit different than what the Penns and the Princetons are in the world, because they had dominated the market at that time so much.

So we did a lot of looking at the West coast, a lot of Midwest and Steve had a ton of success. I know in the Midwest continue to have success in the Midwest after I left. That became a key thing for him. So it was a whole different element and those guys were smart. They were obviously they, you had to be, there was no flexibility with admissions.

You had to get dudes that were smart dudes and, and yet wanted to be big time basketball players. So that was a huge challenge, but those guys were great. We recruited a great group of kids that kind of set the foundation for that program. Obviously soon after I left, that was the Steve took him to the sweet 16, which was unheard of for an Ivy league school.

So I have a lot of pride in what we built there and what we established there because we got that thing going with the right people, the right kids, found a way to do it. And Steve just kept building on it and building on it. And then obviously the success he had was unbelievable when he was there.

So yeah was an awesome experience coaching a different type of kid. You know, those kids, they’re all smarter than me. Another thing, sometimes you have to know who you are, right? Right, yeah. So like, there are certain things I ain’t challenging those dudes on. But again, from a basketball perspective, I was growing as a coach.

I was now three, I was now two high school, two division two. Fifth year as a volunteer at Cornell. Sixth year was a full time. Now I’m growing. Now I’m gaining knowledge. Now I’m comfortable in that environment. Now I feel like I got a leg to stand on because I’m building a resume.

[00:41:43] Mike Klinzing: Next to the Naval Academy.

[00:41:48] Joe Burke: So. Interesting Bill, here we go back to the Langs, right? So Billy Lang gets the Naval Academy head job and calls me up and says, listen, I want, I know how well good of a job you’ve done for Steve. What do you think about coming to Annapolis? And I said, man, I thought this job was hard.

You know, at that time we’re in a time of war at that point. So that’s 2004. If you look back, that’s soon after 9 /11. You know, things are crazy. I’m like, do I really want to do this? Like, this is, this is going to be tough. I mean in the Patriot League had now gone full scholarships and I’m like, how are we going to get kids?

But I will tell you that Navy is a big time operation. And I say that and obviously their football. It’s national TV all the time. They play Notre Dame, they play the Army Navy game, and that kind of drives the athletic department. But boy, do they know how to take care of their employees.

And they made me an offer, honestly, for lack of a better term, an offer I couldn’t refuse. And it was hard to leave Steve because he was not done with his job yet, and I owed him so much. But this was, again, a career decision. I had had my first child. And we wanted to build a family and Annapolis was a great draw.

And I was going to work for a dude that I knew my whole life. And again, I felt like I owed him something because he got me in this profession. So I go to Navy and boy was that different. I mean I spent six years there. I loved it. I mean, again, just recruiting I don’t want to say a different kid.

You’re recruiting because the academics at Navy are off the charts. So you’re recruiting, but a level of toughness, a level, a level of kid that, that understands the military and understands the service piece of things. You know, again, you’re going far and wide nationally to try and find the right kid and the right fit.  And that was one heck of an experience. I’ll be honest with you.

[00:43:46] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I think I’ve had the opportunity to tour actually at Annapolis and also out at the Air Force Academy. And when I’m there in both of those places, I walked around and you just see the level of discipline and you talk to people who are there, both the students and the people who are involved with, with those institutions.

And I mean, it’s just incredible the level of discipline. And I think about myself as an 18 year old and I like to consider myself pretty self disciplined and a hard worker and a good student and somebody that worked at his game and all those things. And then I look at the level of discipline that’s required at one of the service academies.

I’m like, man, I don’t know if I would have wanted to get myself involved in that when I was 18 years old. So again, as you said, it’s a certain profile and I’m sure as a coach. Man, to be able to coach guys who have that just in their normal DNA, forget about their sports DNA, but they just have that in their normal DNA.

It had to be. a different experience and I would think one that was extremely positive for you as a coach.

[00:44:47] Joe Burke: Yeah, the leadership you learn, first off, the leaders you’re around at that institution are like nothing you’ll experience in your life. What I learned there in regards to how to lead people is immeasurable just because of the people you’re around on a daily basis and the kids you’re around.

Like not everyone that goes there, especially when you’re talking athletics, like not everyone fits. The Naval Academy is a prototype Naval Academy player. Like sometimes you got to get a kid and say like, this is what we’re going to help you develop into this. If longest, it’s intriguing enough in that, like you like the idea you’re not, they might not be a great leader, but they’re going to learn leadership skills and grow.

The challenge was honestly is like every kid and that. goes today, like even when I’m coaching at this level, like all those kids wanted to be able to play pro basketball, right? And you know, when you sign up there, that’s not happening, man. David, freaking Robinson didn’t go right away.

Like, he was the number one pick in the draft and he had to go serve. So you’re talking to these kids and you’re like, Hey man, like this is high level basketball, but you know, the good side of it is you’re guaranteed a job when you get out. You are going to be guaranteed a job and you’re going to get the best leadership training in the world.

You’re going to play a high level of basketball. But to find that kid, Mike and Jason, was tough man. Like I used to say to Billy, I’m like, listen, if I walk in the house, And I say like or, or walked up to a parent or pick up the phone and have a conversation and say, Hey what do you think about the Naval Academy?

And the parents were like, well, I don’t want my son to go to war or something like that. Then I know like I got too much ground to cover. They don’t quite understand what the Academy is about. And I’m not sure we’ll ever get there. So you have to pick and choose your battle. You have to, you have to find the kids that have an understanding a little bit about what they’re getting involved in.

And then even then when they get there, man, It’s culture shock. Like you got plebe summer, you got to go through getting up in the morning every day, marching. It’s major, major culture shock. But I’ll tell you what, man, when you graduate from that place, you got no choice but to be tough.

Like you’re a tough dude. Like if you’re an athlete, four year athlete, and you graduate from one of the surface academies, you’re a tough dude. I say, and all the guys that I coach in the six years there, wonderful guys, have great relationships with you. All of them. We stay in touch. Just tough dudes, man.

Tough dudes. They get it. They understand it. They’re driven. They’re motivated. They know what they want to do. And they’re ultimately, oh, really, really successful guys. So.

[00:47:18] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. I mean, like I said every time that I’ve been there and taken the two tours that I was fortunate enough to go on as part of some other experiences.

I mean, I just came away from those places, again, A, super impressed with the people that I came in contact with and B, just trying to put myself as an 18 year old into the shoes of the students that are at those institutions. And man, it’s, it’s really hard to project yourself no matter how self disciplined you think you are to put yourself into those kinds of environments.

I have nothing but respect for anybody who, as you said, graduates, especially going through and playing a varsity sport for four years at one of the service academies, man, as you said, the dudes that are graduating through that, man, yeah, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. It’s tough.

[00:48:06] Joe Burke: But I’ll tell you, I lean on that when I’m talking to my guys here, I’m like, listen, don’t tell me you can’t do it, dude.

I coached at the Naval Academy. You have no idea what you’re capable of. Like, you should see what these dudes went through. Don’t tell me about your academics and basketball and how much time it takes. Like, these dudes, come on now. Yeah. Come on.

[00:48:23] Mike Klinzing: Yep. Yeah.  I hear you. There’s no doubt about that.

I always, again, it’s interesting when you start thinking about everybody, you can only obviously live your own experiences. So you get it to some degree, but yet at the same time, I think one of the things that, that I’ve learned over the course of being an adult is that, yeah, you have no idea how much that you’re capable of if you just kind of put your head down and say, I’m going to, I’m going to do it.

So how long into the experience at the Navy, when do you start looking for head coaching jobs? Or was the Skidmore one that just kind of, Hey, man, it kind of came up all of a sudden, or were you actively looking for head coaching jobs at some point during your tenure there at Navy?

[00:49:01] Joe Burke: Yeah. So, so about my fifth year we had built that thing up.  We had a great year. We really good. It was the best year that Naval Academy had had in a long time. And I just felt like, you know what? I felt like it was time. You know, initially it was like, all right, can I, should I go be a higher level division one assistant or do I want to run my own show? And I just, even when talking with Billy, it was like dude, you’re a head coach.

He kind of guided me. He’s like, I think that’s what you’re about. So let’s go that route. And it was hard, it’s hard to get a division one job. And I tried to get a couple was in the mix. And it just didn’t work out. And I was like, what I got to do here?

Like, do I go back to division three and be a head coach there? A friend of mine Izzy Met, who’s now the head coach at Wilks. And we worked together at Cornell for a short period of time. One of my best friends in the business. I’ll never forget he’s coaching at Hobart at the time. He calls me up and we’re having this conversation He says look I don’t want you in my league.

He’s like, but Skidmore is a sleeping giant He’s like man that he’s like they have not won anything yet But that town Saratoga is unbelievable if you can get it right and get the support of the administration the way you’re driven, dude, you’re going to be able to get this done and you’re going to have a blast.

And I’m like, Skidmore. I’m like I spent four years in Ithaca but I had never been to Saratoga and I certainly had never heard of Skidmore. So I go back and I tell my wife and she’s like, what? I’m like, I think I’m going to try.  I apply for the job and I get a call from the AD and, and we have a conversation initially and then we have a second conversation and it gets down and there was like a hundred applicants for this job. And I’m like, wow, it must, there must be something about it. Like people like it. So they flew me up here and I got on the plane, and honestly guys, I didn’t know what the heck I was going and stepping into.

Like where am I going? Like what is this? What am I doing? And I’ll tell you what, I got off the plane. It picked me up, brought me to campus, and I was here for 24 hours. And I felt like I was interviewing for the Michigan State job. Like, I was getting grilled at every single angle. And I was prepared, like, I was like, holy smokes, man.

These guys are really, they want to win. Like, they want to have success here. Like, this is important. I’m meeting with everybody that’s, involved in the situation with the president, to the head of student affairs, and all these committees. And I’m like, they’re really, so I, and then I do the tour and I get to meet the players and I go downtown and I’m like, listen, man, this is kind of nice.

Like, this is really good. So I got on that plane, literally not knowing what I was getting into. 24 hours later, I get on a plane to go back to Baltimore. I called my wife. I said I didn’t know what I was doing here, but. Now I’m going to be pretty pissed if I don’t get this. She’s like, really? I’m like, yeah, I’m like, I think this is going to be great.

Like we can do what we want to do and build our family and build our culture and have the locker room the way we want to like it and win a lot of games. I just feel it. She’s like, okay, and let’s see what happens. So obviously they interview all their candidates. I get the call. Soon shortly after from Gail and she’s like, and we want to make you the next head coach.

And I said, this is awesome. This is great. We’re going to, we’re in store for another move as a family. At that point, I had just had my third child. So we have my oldest son who actually attends Skidmore now. Who’s my manager and awesome to have around. And my two daughters were born and we had not had our fourth yet, but I said to my wife, we had a house in Annapolis.

I said again, another situation. I think I just have to go. And she’s like, well, you go. Let’s go do the job. I’m not moving right now. We’ll start looking for houses up there and figure this out. And when I took this job, guys, in 2010, the housing market sucked. I don’t know if you were involved in it at all at that point, but like, I couldn’t sell my house in Annapolis.

And be at the houses up here where we’re a lot cheaper. So bottom line was I got the job in July. That entire first year, my family was in Maryland until April. So I was doing a lot of driving back and forth on, on week, every other weekend or times like that to see the, my wife and kids again, huge sacrifice for my wife.

I’m not here obviously if it’s not for her, but that first year was just, again, like I did with Steve and Steve taught me how to do this when I was at Cornell. And how much you have to put into this to build your culture. That’s what I did from that July to that completed that first season, which we were fortunate enough to win the league title and go to the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history.

I went headfirst into this thing, man. Like, I slept in the office, I put everything I had into it, and it’s all of what I learned from Steve during that year when we were at Cornell together. And I just kind of carried it with me and tried to keep my family together, but my wife was super tough about it and it was awesome.

And it was amazing. It was a crazy nine months. But it ended in a championship and then ended with my family moving here shortly after the season.

[00:54:20] Mike Klinzing: It’s that double victory right there, man. Unbelievable. Doesn’t get any better than that.

[00:54:24] Joe Burke: Yeah, I mean, the emotion I’ll never forget after, even when we lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

I just like, I don’t, I’m an emotional dude, but like, at that point, I kind of just broke down, man. I was like, holy moly. I had been through it, but my family was here and they, we knew we were moving in April and we were all coming together and we just won a championship. Life was good. You know what I mean?

Like, but you just see the, you see the results of all the hard work and time you put into and when it comes together like that, there’s no better feeling in the world.

[00:54:55] Mike Klinzing: All right, let me ask you an overarching question about your time at Skidmore. What do you love about Division III basketball? Because obviously you’ve had experiences at all different levels of the game.  So give me the sales pitch for what you love about DIII basketball.

[00:55:13] Joe Burke: Well, for me, honestly, I don’t treat it guys. I don’t treat it any different than Division I. And I think that’s my mentality. I expect a lot from our guys. I talk about that right from the beginning. The beauty of division three, honestly, is these dudes don’t have me up their butt 24, 7, 365, you know what I mean?

Like they get there’s breathing room. And I honestly. When I look back at the time we spent, I spent at Division One and how much time we were with those guys. And like, I probably, we probably over, in my mind, we overdid it at times. I think this I, while I want us to have a little more time than we have together here at this level, I think the breathing room that these kids have.

allows them to get the overall college experience and do more things with their life. And I’m all for that. Now, they’re going to bust their butt, be the best player they can be as basketball players. But I love the fact that they do have some time to themselves, that I let them just go be college students.

And I think sometimes you miss that when you’re at the Division 1 level. I think these kids have a great appreciation for that here. It’s one thing I pride myself in. I make sure I give them enough time off. I make sure they’re home for the holidays with their family. I make sure they’re getting those experiences that I would want them to have as a kid that they have them and yet they’re still committed to basketball in the same way. So that’s really it. I mean, my approach to them as players is the same as it is when they’re here with me and we’re doing, whether we’re practicing or working out or games or what I expect them to do off the floor.

But I do appreciate this level because the thing that they get, to do things that a normal college student would do. And I think there’s great value in that.

[00:57:00] Mike Klinzing: I think it’s a great point. And it’s one that I’ve talked to coaches at all different levels about that exact point of the amount of time that you get to spend with your players in the off season.

Obviously at the division three level up until last year when they added the eight days, which every division three coach that I’ve talked to is that ecstatic that those eight days, are put in place. But prior to that, you basically had no contact with your players on the floor outside of the season.

Then you look at the way that division one has gone where basically those dudes are on campus 11 months out of the year. And they’re working. And I said that my experience back, I played division one basketball from 88 to 92 at Kent state. And I always make the joke that when my season ended, they just handed me like a two page ditto and was like, here’s your workout, man.

We’ll see you back here in August and yeah, completely different world. And in all honesty, like That was probably more similar in that respect to what a D3 experience is like. And I just, I know for me at that time, that if the rules were in place the way they are now, that I would not have wanted to have my coaching staff chirping at me for, of the spring and the summer.

And I don’t know how fresh I would have been coming back on October 15th, back in the day. I just, I wanted to be able to get away and go play pickup and work on my game and do the things that I wanted to do to get better. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t in the gym or wasn’t putting in time or wasn’t working, but I just think that, man, the level of intensity at.

And then you project that out 11 months out of the year. I mean, I wonder whether it’s too much. I honestly do. It is.

[00:58:44] Joe Burke: Well, I mean, I listen, being that I think it’s too much for the coaches too, like, you beat the crap out of yourself doing this. There’s so many guys that I grew up with in this profession and I go back to when I got to Cornell and, In 2000, like we were all buddies, all Ivy League assistant coaches.

Like we would see each other on the road. Obviously we’re looking at a lot of the same kids. Like I’d say 90 percent of those dudes are out of the business. It’s hard to stay in this, like at that level, and I get it. And I’m not ruling out ever going back. I mean, it could happen at some point, but there’s something about your quality of life in this profession, and you can certainly have that at Division III. Yet, you’re working just as hard. You’re just working a little smarter, and you got a little more time. That’s it. That’s really what it comes down to.

[00:59:40] Mike Klinzing: Tell me a little bit about the recruiting, because one of the things, obviously, for people that are out there that are listening, they’re probably well aware of, just D3, you can kind of be recruiting all the time opposed to having the dead periods and the live periods and the contact and all the stuff that rules that in Division I. So just tell me a little bit about your recruiting process at Skidmore. How do you kind of put together your initial list of guys you’re looking at and then just how do you narrow that down and where you going and when and seeing guys and just tell me a little bit about the process.

[01:00:09] Joe Burke: So I think I’ve been fortunate from again, there’s no right or wrong to this. But for me, I’ve leaned on the guys that I’ve known in and met in my career at different schools. I don’t go out searching, really. I’ll go, I’ll make calls. I got a list of 25 high school coaches and prep school coaches that I kind of know through the profession, whether we work together in college or they were a prep school coach then  that are coaching at that level now that I call and I say, look, you guys know what I want.

And what I need. Do you have anything for me or do you have anything in your league for me? Because I just think it’s a rat race man If you try and go out there and think you’re going to find these kids That you want like you got to get to know them like especially nowadays Like I feel like knowing and understanding the personalities And the backgrounds of these kids are so huge.

So I lean heavily on the guys that I’ve gotten to know throughout my years in the profession for recruiting. And when they call me and say, listen, I got a kid I get this six, three big guard, like you like them, that can shoot the ball. You know, he probably needs to polish up a thing or two, but I think he’s going to slide.

I don’t think he’s going to get a D1 offer and if you get in on him early, then at the end you might end up getting him. And that’s how we’ve had that kind of success. I mean, I’ve had a couple of All Americans. We’ve had multiple guys go play professionally, but most of the guys we get are guys that I know in my network that have pushed dudes to me.

And again, it goes back to what we talked about, right? Like you get handed these jobs, you don’t really have the connections you need to have to get the job done. Like, I’ve been doing this a long time. There’s a ton of people I know these dudes know what I’m about and know the success we’ve had at this program and they know I’m going to coach the kid the right way.

They’re going to call me and tell me like, I got a guy for you. And now, and they know, like they they’re not, they don’t, they know they’re not going to not to give me somebody that’s not going to be good enough to compete at this level. They know exactly what I need, what kind of player I want, the toughness I’m looking for, the guy that’s going to buy in who’s coachable.

He may not be the best player, but I’m going to make, he’s going to get better. He has an upside. But he’s sure as hell going to buy into what our program is about and what our locker room is about. And fit in well so that’s kind of what I’ve done since I got here. And it’s worked honestly. We’ve had kids, multiple kids, from one high school.

We’ve leaned on different coaches. You know, we’ve leaned on different areas, different guys that played together in high school guys that came from certain areas of the country, certain international areas. We’ve had a great connection in Lithuania. We had a great connection in Nigeria.

Again, it’s all about how you treat players, right? When you treat players, Well, and they respect that, then they go back to where they’re from and they tell the like, this guy is great and he’s, he runs a great program and you’re going to have a ton of success and a ton of fun. And that just lends itself to getting the next kid.

And that’s kind of what we’ve leaned on to be quite honest with you.

[01:03:11] Mike Klinzing: Once you have those guys in the fold, how do you approach the culture piece? You and I talked about it in our pre-call, just. That culture is so important to you. And obviously to some degree, you’re recruiting that, you’re recruiting what you’re looking for in your guys.

But at the same time, as you well know, that culture is something that you got to preach it. You got to live it. You got to breathe it every single day. So what do you think are some of the keys to, to building the kind of culture that you’ve been able to develop at Skidmore over the time of your career there?

[01:03:43] Joe Burke: Well, the biggest thing for me, like, honestly, we set the tone in that first year. When I got the job, I had I call these guys, the mighty mites. We had like a bunch of dudes that were under six, five that played hard. And they were nuts and they were crazy, but they bought into me and how tough we were going to be and how hard we were going to work.

But I had like four dudes on that team that really, I can tell were like listening and they were going to be extensions of me if we kept working at this thing. And that’s kind of what happened. Like they listened, they spent time in my office. They understood what I was about. how we were going to be in the community, how we were going to be on campus, how we were going to treat this at a high level.

And we were going to get respect from everybody around here because we did things the right way in the classroom, on the court, we worked hard. And I just told them, like, if you guys do this and do it at this level we’re going to win games. And listen, winning helps, right? Like when you come in there and take a job like that and you preach that thing and you preach, this is what you want your locker room to be.

I was able to, because of those guys, I was able to get the culture established the way I wanted without cleaning house. And I take a lot of pride in that because like that, I came into a team, like I’m not, I’m not one of those coaches that’s 18 to 20 man roster. I’m like a 13, 14, 15 guys. When I got here, that roster was like 18.

I’m like, Holy moly, how am I going to do this? So like what I did was I focused on three or four that really were bought in. They helped me in the locker room. We set the tone, we set the culture. And then it just carried through, man. And the thing is, you can’t get sloppy with it, right? You got to make sure you’re still bringing in the right kids.

I’ll be honest with you, COVID crushed that for us. I’m perfectly open and honest about, we took a step back a little bit because I’m all about getting to know the people that are coming in our program and understanding the personalities and the dynamics. I consider myself nowadays more of a general manager, even more than a coach, because I’m all about putting the right pieces together.

But during COVID, that was really difficult. So I felt like our leadership slid a little bit and that affects everything underneath it. So sometimes you got to reestablish that again. So we we’ve kind of been trying to do that the last couple of years and to make sure we have the right pieces and again, resetting the foundation, which I thought we did a fantastic job this year.

I had eight freshmen, largest freshman class I ever had. And just great dudes. They got, we had some injuries with our, a couple of our upperclassmen, the very few that we had. So I was starting four freshmen at times and they got thrown in the fire, but I, I loved how they responded. I loved the resiliency and it reminded me a little bit of my groups when I first got here that these guys can stick together, which we talked about, Mike, is a challenge nowadays, right?  Keeping them here.

[01:06:29] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely.

[01:06:30] Joe Burke: Keeping them in place teaching them, being tough on them, yet not forcing and not them not running away from it, like staying put and being like, okay, I’m going to persevere through this. But I do feel good about this group and where we’re heading. And the experience they got, and then the pieces we got coming in next year behind them.

And the growth they made, I feel really good about where we are, but it’s definitely been a challenge, man. So you set your foundation, set your culture. Then you got to constantly be bringing in the right guys. I just can’t say enough how important it is. I consider myself nowadays more of a general manager, even more than a coach, because I’m all about putting the right pieces together.

The leadership in the locker room to me is everything, especially at this level, right? Like I talk about the most important piece that you need to have as a recruit at this level is to be self sufficient. Like because it gets back to the fact that I can’t be with you all the time.

So you have to learn how to work on your own and push yourself to be better. Like you talked about with yourself, like they gave you the workout plan. See you in August, right? You can come back in August. But if you didn’t push yourself during that time, guess who wasn’t playing, you know what I mean?

When you came back? Absolutely. So like, that’s how it is at this level. Like you got to find dudes that are selfless, dudes that are tough, dudes that work hard, but dudes that are self sufficient and they know how to get it done by themselves, understand what they have to do so that when they come back from their break, whether it be a long Christmas break or summer break they come back and they’re ready to go.  That’s an important aspect of it.

[01:07:58] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. All right. Before we wrap up, I want to ask one final two part question here. And when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being the biggest challenge? And I think you kind of talked a little bit about it already, but just to kind of clarify.

So your biggest challenge in the second part of the question, when you think about what you get to do every single day, What’s your biggest joy? So your biggest challenge and then followed by your biggest joy?

[01:08:27] Joe Burke: So I think the biggest challenge is again what we were talking about is the fight to make sure you’re recruiting guys that understand the process and that things aren’t going to be handed to them and easy and You like I talked to parents about it like I don’t know if you saw that little tidbit that Danny Hurley did about recruiting the parents.

I’ve been saying that for years, that’s a big thing to me. I talked to parents like, look, you, if we’re doing what we’re supposed to do, we’re a good program and a good team. I don’t care how good of a high school player your son is. I’ve had all Americans that come here and I look like a bad coach, but I didn’t start them in their freshman year because I didn’t think they were ready.

So like you got to be resilient enough to understand that this is going to be a grind. This is going to be hard, but if you just stick through it and you stick and believe in the process, then you’re going to be ultimately, you’re going to be successful. Your team’s going to be successful. And you’re going to have great, you’re going to graduate and look back and say, this was the best four years of my life.

The challenge is keeping them here and making sure they believe in that. But when you do, it gets to your biggest joy, right? And your biggest joy is when they come back. I say it all the time for me, it’s not the five conference championships, it’s not the six NCAA tournaments. It’s Alumni Day, and I have to be honest with you guys, the thing I’m most proud of is that every guy that I coached during my tenure here wants to come back, and if they can’t come back, they’re pissed that they can’t because of a job or a family situation.

What we have built here, and the culture we have, and the Alumni Day, and the base that comes back, and the fun we have that night, and how they’re all together with my team in the locker room or on the court. The day of the, that we do it during the season. So we do it during a game day and they’re back and walk through.

It’s just the environment, man. It’s just awesome. And that’s my biggest truth. That’s what drives me, man. Cause I see these guys having success and they’re all having my first few years guys are having kids now and they’re married and yet they’re still coming back. And, and it just means you made a positive impact on their life.

The fact that they appreciate what you did for them and they’re coming back and they’re giving back to the current team. And it’s just sending a message to the team, right? We believed in this guy and this is where I am now. If you believe in him, then you’re going to be the same way in a few years down the road.

[01:10:43] Mike Klinzing: I mean, that kind of sums it up in terms of what it means to be a coach, right? The impact that you have on your players and the fact that you’re able to use basketball. as the tool to be able to have that kind of impact and build that kind of connection and relationship. And I always say that the number one takeaway that I have from the 900 and some episodes of the podcast that we’ve done is that relationships.

are the key to coaching. Both the relationships that you build with your fellow coaches in the profession, which allow you to help them and allow them to help you as you move along your career path. Then secondly, the relationship that you build with your players as a coach, and those are relationships.

Those bonds are things that 20 years down the line, 30 years down the line, 40 years down the line, Man, they’re irreplaceable. So that’s really, really well said. And again, I appreciate you sharing both that challenge and that joy. Before we get out, can you share how people can get in touch with you, find out more about your program, social media, website, email, whatever you feel comfortable with.

And then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:11:50] Joe Burke: Yeah. I mean, we’re on the website, obviously you can email me. And they can call me as well. I’m as you could tell, probably through our conversation, I’m really passionate about what I do. I’m kind of an open book and I’m a people person.

So I like to talk to people and that’s kind of how I build my program. I want people in here that I can talk to when I’m comfortable. And as I tell these guys and their parents, I want kids in my locker room that I feel comfortable that would watch my own kids. And that’s the kind of culture we have.

So. Yeah, they can email me, they can call me. I’m pretty good at getting back to people. So we look at everybody, man. Like, I don’t rule anybody out. We do our due diligence, but there’s a bunch of different ways to recruit. And I know kids are out there are trying.

It’s very difficult to find spots now with the transfer and still the COVID year going on and I completely get it and, and, and it’s tough on certain kids. But Skidmore is a great place. Saratoga is a great place. We have a great community. It’s not even it’s not about me. It’s about what we’re doing.

What has been established here. And I will tell you that there’s not too many people come here or graduate from here that walk away from this and say they didn’t enjoy it. Because if you came, like I said, if you came to our alumni day, you would, you would see what it’s like. And you’d be like, man, this is pretty impressive stuff.

[01:13:07] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. Joe, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to jump on with us. Truly appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening. And we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.