Interview with Wyoming Director of Athletics Tom Burman, 6-6-11
From the time Tom Burman was named Athletics Director at the University of Wyoming on Oct. 9, 2006, the Wyoming Athletics program has enjoyed some of its most memorable moments in school history. From the Wyoming Cowgirl Basketball Team capturing the WNIT National Championship in 2007 to the Wyoming Football Team's dramatic, double-overtime victory in the 2009 New Mexico Bowl, Wyoming Athletics has experienced numerous successes on and off the field of competition.
Fundraising and season-ticket sales have reached record levels in Burman's five years directing the UW Athletics Department. Numerous facility projects have also been completed under Burman's direction.
In the 2010-11 Learfield Sports Directors' Cup competition, which measures each NCAA Division I University's competitive rank among its peer universities, Wyoming recorded its highest rank since the 2003-04 season.
Before becoming A.D. at Wyoming, Burman had previously served as an Associate Athletics Director at UW from 1995-2000. He served as Athletics Director at Portland State University from September 2000 through March 2006. Burman returned to UW in March 2006 as Associate Vice President for Institutional Advancement with the UW Foundation, before being tabbed by President Tom Buchanan as the eighth athletics director in UW history.
"I care deeply about this University, the success of UW Athletics and the well-being of our student-athletes," Burman said upon his hiring. "We will build a program that wins championships, is a source of great pride to our alumni and generates enthusiasm across the state. The future starts now."
Some of the accomplishments that have been achieved during Burman's tenure as Director of Athletics at the University of Wyoming include:
Student Services
• Resources dedicated toward academic success and student-athlete welfare since 2006 have increased nearly 100 percent.
• During the 2010-11 academic year, a total of 115 UW student-athletes earned Academic All-Mountain West Conference honors. In addition, 62 student-athletes earned Mountain West Conference Scholar-Athlete honors which is the largest number of student-athletes to earn the Scholar-Athlete award in the past 10 years.
• Also in the 2010-11 academic year, 10 out of UW's 17 NCAA athletic teams earned a cumulative team grade-point-average of 3.00 or higher. Those 10 teams were: women's basketball, women's volleyball, men's swimming and diving, women's swimming and diving, men's golf, women's golf, women's tennis, men's cross country, women's cross country and women's track and field.
• In the most recent APR (Academic Progress Rate) information released by the NCAA in the summer of 2011, 16 of Wyoming's 17 sports exceeded the 925 benchmark set by the NCAA. Wyoming men's basketball was the only UW team that did not meet the 925 benchmark, but Cowboy Basketball's most recent score of 905 marked an improvement from 892 in 2010 and marked the fourth consecutive year the score had improved. Wyoming had 14 of its 17 sports either maintain or increase their APR scores in 2010-11.
Revenue Generation/Facilities
• Cowboy Joe Club revenue grew from $2.1 million in 2006 to $4.2 million in 2010.
• Ticket revenue has dramatically grown, including a 63 percent growth in football season tickets since 2007.
• In the summer of 2011, season-ticket sales for Wyoming Football surpassed the 10,000 season-ticket mark for the first time in school history.
• The overall UW Athletics Department budget grew from $21 million to $26 million for the 2011-12 budget year.
• In the spring of 2010, UW Athletics completed a $38 million athletics facility campaign under Burman's direction as athletics director.
• Burman spearheaded over $50 million in facilities projects in five years, including: construction of a new $11 million Indoor Practice Facility; construction of the Wildcatter Stadium Club & Suites addition to War Memorial Stadium; extensive renovations to the east side of War Memorial Stadium; significant upgrades to the UniWyo Sports Complex for volleyball and wrestling; and development of a new Indoor Tennis Facility.
• The Indoor Practice Facility contains over 80,000 square feet, including a full-size, 100-yard by 50-yard football field.
• The Wildcatter Stadium Club & Suites opened for the start of the 2010 football season, and features 12 luxury suites and 256 club seats. The suites were sold out months before the opening, and club seats were over 90 percent sold.
• Renovations to War Memorial Stadium have focused on modernizing areas of the stadium that benefit fans, specifically new and improved concession areas, bathrooms and seating.
• Wyoming's volleyball and wrestling programs have benefitted from new and improved seating, lighting and competition surfaces in the UniWyo Sports Complex.
• In the June of 2010, ground was broken on a new $3 million Indoor Tennis Facility for the Cowgirl Tennis program. That facility opened in the spring of 2011.
Competitive Excellence
• Burman hired head coach Dave Christensen prior to the 2009 season, which drew high marks from several national and local media reviews. Christensen led Wyoming to the 2009 New Mexico Bowl Championship with a thrilling 35-28, double-overtime victory over Fresno State. Christensen became only the second Wyoming coach to lead his team to a bowl game in his first season -- the other being Paul Roach in 1987 -- and Christensen became the first Cowboy head coach to win a bowl game in his first season. His first two Cowboy squads also won back-to-back victories in the annual "Border War" game versus archrival Colorado State.
• In the spring of 2011, Burman lured Larry Shyatt away from his position as Associate Head Coach at the University of Florida to return to Laramie and take over as head coach of the Cowboy Basketball program. Shyatt had been part of two National Championships with the Gators and had previously served as Wyoming's head coach in the 1997-98 season. Burman's hiring of Shyatt received numerous positive reviews, including an "A" rating from ESPN.com. Of the 19 coaching hires that ESPN.com rated, Wyoming received one of only five "A" ratings.
• Cowgirl Basketball has achieved unprecedented success over the past five years. Wyoming won the Women's National Invitation Tournament (WNIT) National Championship in the 2006-07 season, defeating Wisconsin, 72-56, in the championship game in Laramie. The next season, 2007-08, the Cowgirls earned the program's first-ever NCAA Tournament berth. In 2009-10, Wyoming again received a bid to the WNIT where it advanced to the third round, and in 2010-11 the Cowgirls again advanced to the third round of the WNIT.
• Burman hired Mark Branch as Wyoming's new wrestling coach prior to the 2008-09 season. The former two-time national champion at Oklahoma State University, Branch led Wyoming to a share of the Western Wrestling Conference (WWC) dual title in his first season at Wyoming and a second-place finish in the NCAA West Regional. Branch was selected WWC Coach of the Year. He also earned West Region Coach of the Year honors from D1CollegeWrestling.net and was named the Top Rookie Coach in the nation by Amateur Wrestling News. In Branch's second season, he led the Cowboys to the outright WWC dual title and Wyoming captured its first-ever NCAA West Regional title. The 2010-11 season saw the Pokes repeat as NCAA West Regional Champions. UW placed 28th at the NCAA Championships, and had two All-Americans in juniors Shane Onufer and Joe LeBlanc, who finished fifth and sixth respectively at the 2011 NCAA Championships.
Personnel
• Burman attracted head soccer coach Danny Sanchez to UW in the summer of 2008. Sanchez came to Wyoming from Metro State College in Denver, Colo., where he led the Roadrunners to two NCAA Division II National Championships in 2004 and 2006. Sanchez was named the NCAA Division II National Coach of the Year following the 2004 season.
• Carrie Yerty was also hired in the summer of `08 as head women's volleyball coach at UW. Yerty came to Wyoming after becoming the winningest volleyball coach in University of Memphis history, building a 232-174 (.572) record in 13 seasons with the Tigers.
• The other young, successful coach hired by Burman is head tennis coach Kati Gyulai. In only her second season after returning to her alma mater, Gyulai led the Cowgirls to unprecedented success at UW. Her 2009-10 squad posted the best overall record (14-8), best conference record (5-3) and best conference finish (third place) in school history, and concluded the season ranked No. 73 in the nation out of 323 NCAA Division I women's tennis programs. Her team followed that performance up with another outstanding season in 2010-11, earning a final season ranking of No. 74 after reaching a school best ranking of No. 68 in late March 2011.
Scheduling
• The University of Wyoming hosted its greatest home football schedule in school history in 2009 when the then No. 2 ranked Texas Longhorns made their first-ever appearance in War Memorial Stadium. The Longhorns went on to play for the 2009 National Championship.
• That 2009 Texas game will be surpassed in 2011 when new Big Ten member Nebraska makes its first-ever appearance in Laramie.
• In addition to Texas (2009, 2010 and 2012) and Nebraska (2011, 2013 and 2016), Burman has also negotiated future football contracts with Oregon (2014 and 2015) and Missouri (2017 and 2018) that will bring each of those teams to Laramie at once in future seasons.
From 1997-2000, Burman was Wyoming's Associate Athletics Director for External Affairs. During that time period, he was instrumental in raising funds for the $9.4 million Rochelle Athletics Center. His first position at his alma mater was as Associate Athletics Director for Development, serving as Executive Director of the Cowboy Joe Club from 1995-97. He began his intercollegiate athletics career as Director of Marketing and Promotions (1993-95) at the University of Idaho in Moscow. From 1990-92, Burman worked as a project manager for the sports management company DeWilber & Associates in McLean, Va.
Burman earned a bachelor of science degree from Wyoming in 1988 and an M.B.A. from Robert Morris University in Coraopolis, Pa., in 1991.
Burman is 45 years old, born Jan. 4, 1966. He and his wife, Kathy, have two sons, Drew and Nathan.
