LOUISVILLE, Ky. — When Roger Burkman, who won a national championship with the University of Louisville basketball team in 1980, began working as athletic director at Spalding University, the school was “running what amounted to a college program on a high school budget,” President Tori Murden-McClure said Friday.
A lot has changed since 2005. This summer, when Burkman retires from his post, he’ll leave behind upgraded facilities, a program that’s made the jump to NCAA Division III, and, as of this week, an athletic hall of fame that bears his name.
Spalding University on Friday unveiled the Roger Burkman Hall of Fame in the Columbia Gym, the building in downtown Louisville that houses its basketball teams and the hallowed ground on which Muhammad Ali learned to box.
Burkman first learned that his name would grace the hall of fame on Thursday.
“I walked in here and honestly, my focus was on the plaques and the pictures,” he said. “Then, I looked above, and I said, ‘There’s my signature.’ Then, I realized truly what a special moment this is. I don’t think I deserve such an honor, but it’s great to have.”
This March, Burkman announced his plans to retire as athletic director at the end of June. He said Friday that he won’t disappear from campus entirely though. He’s planning to transition to a part-time fundraising role with the university.
Burkman has spent 17 years at Spalding, growing the athletic program in ways that may have once seemed unfathomable.
“I did not let him see the athletic facilities before I hired him because they did not look like they look now,” Murden-McClure said Friday.
Burkman recalled that when he arrived at Spalding, volleyball players had to prepare for games in a closet. Officials were forced to dress in the room that now houses the hall of fame. And the bottom floor of the gym was home to a cafeteria and financial aid offices.
“I just know we had to make some changes,” he said.
Those changes began with a $1.5 million overhaul to Columbia Gym, which included kicking out the office workers and building a weight room and training room.
From there, Burkman said, “We decided we could do more.”
In 2013, the school began fundraising to build a new athletic complex a few blocks away from the gym on South Eighth and South Ninth streets. Constructed on the site of a former industrial brownfield, the complex includes two soccer fields and one softball field, all lined with turf.
“For years, our soccer teams and our softball teams had to travel all over the city to find a place to practice and play,” Burkman said. “That was a nightmare.”
Now, they have a facility to call their own at a university that has significantly ungraded its athletics.
And as Murden-McClure said Friday, it wouldn’t have happened without Burkman. “I knew I couldn’t pull off that shift by myself,” she said. “I needed a very famous athlete to help make it happen.”