Grateful Butler took a chance on coach Burke years ago
It doesn’t seem so long ago, but it has been 27 years since the Butler School District decided to take a chance on a new varsity basketball coach fresh out of college and turn over to her a program with turmoil up to its ears.
The biggest problem? Parents not staying out of the coaching staff’s business.
It seemed like a big chance to take with a young coach, even though she brought with her an outstanding history as a player at Bethel Park High School and the University of Pittsburgh.
Today, she is a member of almost every Hall of Fame for which she is eligible.
Yet her career at Butler was anything but easy. Her record after ten games was 1-9. That first season would bring only four wins, and the first three seasons a total of 20.
One of the regulars on that team worried constantly that the athletic director and the board would run coach Jonna Huemerich out of Butler before she had a real chance to build a program.
But over those first few years, some good things were happening. Coach Huemerich became Coach Burke. The players that were in junior high in 1995 were getting the benefit of starting Burke’s system in their formative years.
In the second season, the Golden Tornado actual made the playoffs and a first round play-in game, which they won but had still had a losing record.
High hopes for the 1997-98 season were dashed as they stumbled to a five win season and the proverbial heat was on the coach. But the work ethic Burke was so eager to instill in her girls took hold the summer before the 1998-99 season. That squad was exceptionally young but — guided by a lone senior, who led by the example Burke had instilled in her during her first three seasons — did all the things Burke asked of them.
That season would be the beginning of a tremendously successful coaching career.
At Tuesday night’s game against Apollo-Ridge, Burke’s team, Shady Side Academy, won 66-34. This signified a 500-victory milestone in Burke’s illustrious career, which is an accomplishment that very few and only the best reach.
Burke is deserving of all the accolades that will come her way as she hits that magic number. But not to be lost in the shower of praise is the glow from bigger successes she has had in the lives of the student-athletes lucky enough to have played for her.
Some were trying to be in attendance for “number 500,” but many more will remember to thank their lucky stars for the people at Butler High who showed confidence in that fine young coach and had the patience to wait for even that first victory at Franklin Regional on Dec. 28, 1995.
We congratulate Burke and thank her for the lessons she brought to the young women on those Butler teams of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
We were fortunate to have you here and to witness many of those firsts in your career.
— RV
