Students, faculty, and members of the local community, all gather to marvel at the hidden athletic talents here at UW.
On any given weekend here at UW, one can find a club sporting event to watch and enjoy. Yet what isn’t always talked about is the man behind the scenes, the man who makes all of this possible.
That man is Adam Burke. Burke is the Assistant Director of Campus Recreation at the university, and works directly with the club sports programs to ensure the clubs are ready to compete and represent UW.
Burke, who completed his undergraduate degree at Colorado State University, has been working with the recreations department at UW for three years, yet has way more experience than that.
Burke attended Oregon State University for graduate school to get a masters in forestry, but while he was there worked with their recreation department and ended up falling in love with the job.
Burke’s background in forestry allows him to have unique insight into the inner workings of other recreational events around campus besides club sports, such as the outdoor program that is also run through campus recreations.
“I work with the Outdoor Adventure program, within campus recreation, so kind of pulling my forestry academic side back into it,” Burke said.
Burke grew up loving sports and feels that they influenced his career choice heavily, and if he wanted his job to revolve around sports he is definitely in the right place.
“[Sports] got me engaged in the recreation world during my undergrad,” Burke said.
An average day for Burke can consist of a wide variety of duties, involving the 21 club sports that UW is home to. Burke helps the clubs with all the administrative hassle that can go into organizing events.
“All of our clubs are student run, they dictate what the club does,” Burke said. “Then they come to me and I help them remove the barriers.”
Burke helps students every day and definitely enjoys the opportunity.
“[My favorite part of the job] is the student development piece, getting to work with students,” Burke said. “That’s why I love to work. I get to spend a lot of time with the same students and I get to interact with those people on a regular basis. So, from where we start the year to when we get to the end of the year and seeing the growth and the development of the students is probably my favorite part.”
Burke also works with intermural sports here at UW.
“I work with our intermural sports program, kind of helping provide the large oversight and administrative oversight over that program,” Burke said.
Students and members of the club sporting community here at UW are definitely thankful for all Burke’s hard work.
“Adam is amazing, he makes life easy with all his systems, and is great at what he does,” President of the UW Hockey team Eric Tomasello said. “He is a really good guy, friendly and understanding.”
Burke is just happy that he can help students at UW stay active.
“A really cool part of the programming that we do is that we are providing opportunities for about 600 students to engage in competitive sports, it’s a great avenue for people coming from competitive sports in high school to continue to compete,” Burke said.
So next time you are enjoying either playing or enjoying watching a club sporting event, or for that matter any recreational event on campus, remember the man who helped make it possible: Adam Burke.
