Post-NBA, Burke found a new passion helping young people. He created HOOPS Life, a program that mixed basketball with teaching deeper life lessons about team building, working with others and setting goals. His Tavares nonprofit changed the trajectory of his career and brought Burke into Beacon’s orbit.

We caught up with Burke as he shares about the Beacon connection, the allure of the Beacon difference, and his plans to kick Beacon Blazers sports up a notch.

Q: What drew you to Beacon College?
Burke: An interesting origin story dates back to 2016 when I was running an organization named HOOPS Life. HOOPS Life was a leadership program that introduced self-awareness, discipline, and respect to youth through basketball. During the program, one of the children’s parents approached me and asked, “Are you familiar with Beacon College in Leesburg?” I said no; I didn’t know anything about it at the time. They explained that Dr. Hagerty, a visionary, had developed an individualized approach for collegiate students. Seeing potential synergy, I was introduced to Dr. Hagerty. In 2015, he proposed a shorter program for college-age students, specifically international students. We then developed a three-week program that mirrored our leadership curriculum. This experience was my first understanding of the power of Beacon College’s mission statement and what was happening on campus.

Q: You boast a diverse background both in basketball and community work. How does your experience translate to coaching at the collegiate level?
Burke: I have coached youth in the past, and I think the biggest piece that will assist in this is my experience with basketball at many levels. When I wanted to become a competitive player and improve, I had a coach who changed my life. My high school coach approached me in a way that even my father didn’t. It was different and challenging, and it built my confidence. His mentoring helped me earn a college scholarship. Over a 12-year span of playing professional basketball, I experienced the international aspect of the sport, effective coaches, and highly focused athletes. When I finished playing, I realized I was missing the balance of life. That’s where the program came in, bridging sports and life. It was an effective way to learn what student-athletes seek to balance and achieve. As a college coach, working with young individuals to become the best version of themselves and helping them navigate the adversity of college life and sports is crucial.

Q: What is your immediate vision for the Beacon men’s basketball program?
Burke: I think it’s appropriate to revisit Dr. Hagerty’s vision, with which I was so enamored in 2015. Understanding that Beacon College has grown from just over 100 students in 2015 to over 500 in 2025 is a significant metric of its growth. This growth occurred without sports, and my ability to continue that is crucial. Understanding Beacon’s mission statement is really the catalyst for the next step in sports, creating a platform that integrates academics, collegiate life, and sports. This approach focuses on student-athletes, the student body, and Beacon’s campus culture. So, I don’t think it’s one viewpoint of me saying, well, “this is what my vision is” because I think that that becomes someone coming in as an island onto themselves. You have to be inclusive in understanding that this is not my basketball program. This is the Beacon College basketball program; this is Beacon College culture. This is one where you want to ask what can we do to assist what’s happening here and what can we do to bring it to another level with everybody being involved.

Q: You mentioned inclusion. Beacon College has a specific mission to serve neurodivergent students. How will you adapt your coaching style to meet the unique needs of your players?
Burke: This is probably one of the most powerful questions, and it revolves around self-awareness. If I go into this thinking my way is all I need, it would be egotistical. Instead, I need to ask the staff and faculty, “What do I need to do to research the best and most effective ways of approaching individuals?” Whether it’s kinesthetic, audible, or visual learning, how can I support them? Not to be mistaken for the autocratic approach seen in sports worldwide, where coaches dictate and expect results. So, the biggest part for me is to start asking questions. How can I get myself out of the way and create a safe environment? This isn’t about building an autocratic space like a Nick Saban Alabama football program. It’s about understanding and respecting the individuals here and figuring out the best ways to work together and collaborate. The goal is to build a basketball program or athletic department we can all be proud of.

Q: Neurodivergent individuals often excel in structured environments. How will you create that structure within your program?
Burke: That’s a great question. I think, of course, schedule is one of the things that every athlete looking to become their best understands. There’s a schedule and a discipline to it. That doesn’t mean people can’t have bad days or bad moments, but the first thing with structure is understanding that if we can have consistency in how we’re getting together, we can help each other move forward. So that would be one. The second one is the structure in conversations that can be individualistic about what each player is looking to achieve. We’re not talking about fuzzy adjectives; we’re getting into the metrics of sports and athletic ability, whether that’s in their exercise, cardio training, and things like that. Of course, we’re also doing this as a team, measuring what’s happening in game times so student-athletes can see how metrics play a part. We’re looking at turnovers, offensive rebounds, and other categories we work together to achieve.

Q: You mentioned conversation and communication are keys in any team sport. How will you ensure effective communication among players with diverse communication styles?
Burke: I think, again, that’s a great question. You have to be requesting a number of times what is the feedback? Even in a conversation, ask individuals, “What are you hearing?” The author of a conversation or someone communicating isn’t always capable of understanding what’s being received. When building relationships, especially with coaches and athletes, everyone thinks there’s a hierarchy. What if there’s a level playing field, saying let’s work on finding out where it is, where we work on improving together? If a coach just communicates, “We’re going to do this, this, and this,” and walks away assuming it’s been received, it leads to expectations, emotions, stress, and anxiety. But if you start to approach it, instead, “let’s communicate, figure out the best ways, and ask, “What did you hear? What are we looking for?” This ensures the receiver understands what we’re working at. We’re not looking for the most perfect space; we’re looking for progression, and that comes in slow steps.

Q: How do you balance the competitive aspect of college basketball with the academic and personal development of your student athletes, particularly given the unique challenges some of them may face?
Burke: Well, we’re going up against the mammoth of social media, the continuous understanding of how television talks about sports, and the societal norm of the money and agreements happening with NIL. Inside of that, you have an understanding of a home. How do you build a relationship with the players, with the student-athletes, and open up conversations not based on judgment, but on where they’re at and what they’re looking to achieve? Then bring back the truthful aspects of this. Not to get too much into the metrics, but let’s see where you’re at. What’s your attendance? Where are your grades? Let’s talk about some of the distractions that can get in the way—not at fault, but distractions that can affect young people at this age, in college. Let’s work together to understand that this has become a safe place to fail, so to speak. Allowing these young people to understand that we’re not looking for an ideal with expectations, but we’re looking to build relationships. It’s slow going at first because, for student-athletes, I know it did for me—you have to see the actions of your staff and athletic department, how they are taking that on. It’s not just about speaking it, but actually carving out time to create meetings and conversations with individuals so they realize it’s something more than just sports.

Q: Your HOOPS Life program focused on leadership and life skills. How will you integrate those principles into your coaching philosophy?
Burke: Well, one of the biggest things I learned through HOOPS Life is you can’t be the complete architect of building something. You almost have to create a democracy by asking the individuals who are there, “Okay, what can we do with this?” Even if the people you’re asking don’t have the answers, you can go through that with them and bring in an example. If you ask, “How many shots do we need to put up in a week to make an improvement or to start working on consistent mechanics?” many athletes, even in their 20s, don’t really know the number. So it’s like saying, “Okay, let’s look at this and see what happens.” Going back to the original idea, I can’t create the whole architectural structure, but I can create the way we build it with everybody involved. Then we all own it. We all have something in there that we can be proud of because we achieved it together, and we can all look back in time and say, when we put in our 100% in and when we didn’t, and knowing how that journey went.

Q: You’ve played basketball at the highest levels. What lessons from your pro career do you hope to impart on your players?
Burke: I’d say not to look at one particular way, but I learned lessons through experience. I know what teams did when coaches focused too much on basketball and the sport. I also know what it was like when coaches focused on the relationship. If something was transactional, just business, just winning games, just Xs and Os, the biggest thing I understood was how my relationship with that coach or organization went during the season and how it felt afterward. When it was more about the relationship, when individuals cared more about you and less about putting a ball in a metal cylinder, it’s funny—you actually want to work more for them. You want to put more into it because the environment helps you grow. In the professional part of it, where everything can seem like it’s all about “What are you doing for me now?” from organizations or coaches, it’s the ones that weren’t like that where we had the best experience and translated that into more wins.

Q: Being the first Irish-born player in the NBA, you have a history of breaking barriers. How do you feel about breaking new ground in this type of college environment?
Burke: I’m excited. I don’t know if breaking new ground is something you ever get used to. You keep exercising it and think, “Oh, this is just like that. This is just like the Beacon trailblazing. This is something new.” I believe there’s an excitement to it, but also a very large responsibility. Collectively, accumulating all my experiences, I feel great about where I’m at at this age, this time, and this moment in my life. This feels like an absolutely great fit.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about the style you plan to trot out on the hardwood?
Burke: I think time will tell, and the reason I say that is because we’re in a transition period with the coaching staff. We’ll be going out, communicating with the players, and talking to them. When we start to solidify where we’re at, we’ll put in a progressive way of looking at this. When players feel good about what they’re running, they’re excited. When they don’t feel good about what they’re doing, they’re obviously not looking forward to things. That’s when we have to look at our personnel. We also have to consider what success looks like in this league and conference. What are the top teams doing? What does their roster look like, and what is their style? Beacon will be unique, but we have to collectively look at these factors to see what is working in 2025 collegiate sports at this level.

Q: Beacon is a unique environment. Blue-chip, NBA-coveted players likely won’t be showing up on campus. Given that, what kind of player is your kind of player that you’re looking to recruit?
Burke: I think we’ve all heard sayings like “There’s no I in team” or “We before me.” I’m looking for players where it’s “me before we,” meaning someone who is self-aware and understands themselves. This isn’t just about their talent or skillset in basketball, but someone who knows themselves well enough to contribute to campus life. When we’re on a road trip, they’re contributing to the culture and wanting to be a part of this. I’m 100% with you—this isn’t about becoming the Duke (University) of basketball in a fast-track opportunity. We’re looking to build a program that players can be proud of, where they own the culture and become beacons, reverberating that culture throughout campus. There’s more to it than just basketball. If that’s the focus, it inevitably separates from the student body. But if we build something inclusive together, it will resonate with individuals who come to campus and ultimately make a decision. If they’re looking at other schools and feel a fit, when they walk on our campus and see student-athletes woven into student life—at the dining hall, talking and hanging out with other students—and see the student body supporting at games, with interaction and communication, that’s exciting. Those are the type of people we want to bring here. It adds to the experience and the growth of others who will want that as well.