Having Completed Sale, New Aztec Coach Focuses on Delivery

To understand how Beth Burns, the new San Diego State women’s basketball coach, earned her reputation as a master recruiter, you only have to look at how she got her first major college coaching job.

It was then that Burns learned that before she could sell someone else, she had to sell herself.

At the time, Burns was a 22-year-old, first-year assistant at her alma mater, Ohio Wesleyan. She heard one day that Ohio State had hired a women’s basketball coach and figured this could be her chance to move up.

So she got in her car and drove 30 miles to the campus in Columbus. She headed straight for the office of the new coach, Tara VanDerveer. All she wanted was a few minutes, just enough time to convince VanDerveer that she could contribute to her program.

She took a seat outside the office and waited. The first day, VanDerveer was too busy. The second, Burns arrived only to discover that instead of bringing her resume, she had grabbed a course syllabus on her way out of her apartment. She returned a couple of hours later with her resume, but again VanDerveer could not see her.

On the third day, VanDerveer finally took notice. “Are you waiting to see me?” she asked. That was all the opening Burns needed.

Once inside the office, Burns convinced an initially skeptical VanDerveer that she should let her join the program as a volunteer assistant. Three months later, she was appointed a graduate assistant for the 1980-81 season.

“You could see right then that Beth had the drive to be a head coach,” said VanDerveer, now the coach at Stanford. “She had the enthusiasm and the intensity. I knew it was only a matter of time.”

That time came Wednesday, when Burns was introduced as the Aztecs’ coach. One of the first people she called with the news was VanDerveer.

“Everyone has a mentor, a coach that influenced them, and for me that person is Tara,” said Burns, 31. “I hung around a water cooler for three days before Tara talked to me, but once she did, she got me pointed in the right direction.”

That path has taken Burns to assistant jobs at East Carolina (1981-83), Colorado (1983-88) and North Carolina State (1988-89) before her appointment by SDSU. It is her first job as a head coach, and she cannot wait to get started.

“You won’t find Beth at the beach or at the zoo,” VanDerveer said. “You are going to find her on the job.”

That explains why Burns spent five years in Colorado and never made it to the ski slope.

“People tell me I’m too intense at times,” Burns said. “Every year I said, ‘When we get things going, I’m going skiing.’ But it never happened. I know this, I think I will swim before I retire from here.”

But first things first. A quick stop by her office Friday morning showed Burns actively on the job.

She sat at her desk scribbling notes and fielding telephone calls. Office supplies were scattered on the floor. Much of what was left behind by the former coach, Earnest Riggins, was stacked on one side of the room. Sketches of SDSU’s new basketball arena, to be built on the site of Aztec Bowl, were posted on another wall. Within the hour, Burns would be off to catch an early afternoon flight to start her off-campus recruiting,

“To be competitive at this level, you have to have the players,” Burns said. “If you have a great product to sell, you have immediate credibility. I sold Colorado and (Coach) Ceal Berry. I sold N.C. State and (Olympic Coach) Kay Yow. Now I am eager to sell myself and San Diego State. I am not going to step back from recruiting, because recruiting is something I enjoy.”

And it shows. Why else would Burns drive nine hours to watch a prospect play in a far corner of Iowa, only to arrive in time to find the game had been canceled because of fog? Or pile six coaches into a car to drive hours to see a tournament in Kansas City, Mo., as she had to do in her early days as an assistant? Or take the time to write note after note to a top prospect.

“This is 1989,” Burns said. “A player can spot a word processor in a heart beat. You can’t use form letters. That is not going to do it. You have to be as unique as you can.

“Before I talk about the school, I try to build a report with the player, mix in a sense of humor. I don’t talk about how many books are in the library or how many majors there are. And everybody has tutors. At our level, a lot of universities are the same. What separates them is the people. That is the difference.”

All of which is a big change from when Burns played high school basketball in Chatham, N.J., a suburban town of 8,600, 30 miles west of New York. This was before the boom in women’s sports. Her team did not even have uniforms until her junior season.

She chose Ohio Wesleyan because the school had a new gymnasium. She started four seasons and captained the team her junior and senior years. But Burns is not one to make much of her small college career.

“I was a 5-foot-10 forward when that was big enough to play center,” Burns said. “Today I would be a point guard.”

VanDerveer is more direct. “Beth is not a great player. She is someone who has lived vicariously through her players.”

But until this week, those players actually belonged to someone else--the head coach. Now Burns is in charge. Already she has plans to spruce up her Spartan quarters.

“Scotch tape and thumbtacks are not my idea of decorating,” Burns said. “We are going to get this place in shape.”

For now, that will have to wait until Burns returns from her recruiting trip. Some priorities never change.

Aztec Notes

Sandra (Binky) Perkins, the high school player of the year in Alabama, will not attend San Diego State as planned. Perkins, a 6-foot-3 center/forward who was signed to a letter of intent in April by Earnest Riggins, the former coach, did not meet SDSU admissions standards, said Linda Keck, assistant sports information director.