Coach Bob Burton is in his tenth year as head men's basketball coach at Cal State Fullerton and one can reasonably argue that he has been the most successful of the nine men who have guided the program through its first 51 seasons.
With 155 wins, Burton is the winningest coach in CSF men's basketball history, surpassing Alex Omalev (139-176 in 1960 thru 1972) last season. Burton's winning percentage of .560 is second only to the .583 mark posted in seven seasons by Bobby Dye.
The pair of "Bobs" can point to remarkably similar accomplishments a generation apart:
Burton's record was 123-92 in his first seven years while Dye was 109-78. Each won a share of the program's only conference championships (Dye in 1976, Burton in 2008) and each has one of the school's two NCAA Tournament appearances (Dye in 1978, Burton in 2008). Dye's 1978 team captured "Cinderella" headlines by upsetting two Top 20 teams in New Mexico and San Francisco before coming up one possession shy of the Final Four after a loss to Arkansas in the West Regional Final. Burton lost to Wisconsin in the first round of 2008 but took his 2005 team to the NIT Final Eight by winning road games at Oregon State and San Francisco before losing minus two injured starters at Georgetown.
Both came to Fullerton via the community college route -- Dye from Santa Monica and Burton from West Valley. Dye guided the program through the transition from Div. II to Div. I while Burton inherited a program weakened by NCAA probation and lost five potential starters in his first summer.
Where they differ is style. In the pre-shot clock and 3-point field goal era, Dye orchestrated a patient, patterned offense and was taciturn with the media. The gregarious Burton wants his teams to run as much as possible, take the open trey and the result has been one of the nation's highest scoring programs.
Topping Burton's record on the court has been the recent graduation rate. All seven departing players from the 2008 team received bachelors degrees and a total of 22 will have walked in the last five commencement exercises including all five seniors from this season. In the Spring Semester of 2011, the team set a program record with a composite 3.19 GPA including three on the Dean's List (3.50 or better) and nine more on the Honor Roll (3.00 or better).
There have been six winning seasons in Burton's Fullerton tenure and 37 in his 42 years as a head coach. At Fullerton he has four of the program's seven 20-win seasons including a Div. I best total of 24 in 2007-08. For that, he was seleced NABC District 15 Coach of the Year.
Fullerton's resurgence as a competitive mid-major force materialized in Burton's second season at Fullerton -- 2004-05. The Titans closed out the schedule with a 13-4 run including the NIT to highlight the program's first 20-win season (21-11) in 27 years. It began a streak of four consecutive winning seasons. Not since 1981-82 thru 1984-85 had the Titans strung together four winning seasons. In fact, they had not posted a single winning campaign since 1992-93's 15-12 slate.
The newfound winning formula began with an up-tempo offense set up by aggressive defense while utilizing mature transfer student-athletes from both 4-year and 2-year institutions. Success away from Titan Gym has been remarkable. Despite a 4-15 road mark last season, Burton's teams are 73-87 on the road including 59-67 on hostile courts. They are 82-35 at home including a current streak of 12 in a row.
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Mark down Jan. 27, 2005, as the turning point in Burton's Cal State Fullerton coaching career. That's when the direction of a seemingly hexed program was altered 180 degrees. Since that day, his teams have won 58 percent of their games (136-98, .581) after a 19-24 (.442) start.
Until that date, the basketball gods were treating Burton as harshly as they had tortured several predecessors. During an inaugural year (2003-04) littered with misfortune, eight players were lost to a variety of calamities and the count was climbing higher in his second campaign. Projected starting center Lloyd Walls had been ruled out for the year in pre-season drills due to multiple concussions. Inspirational reserve guard Drew Awad had suffered a reoccurrence of cancer which soon proved fatal. And senior forward Hardy Asprilla had gone down with a season-ending knee injury to mar a lopsided win over Long Beach State that had given the Titans a surprising 8-4 record.
Three consecutive defeats followed and more seemed inevitable as an already short roster tried to cope. Doubters wondered if the Titans would win another game.
Miraculously, the sea of adversity parted and winning became a habit. Against Cal Poly, the Titans suddenly clicked. With Yaphett King joining Ralphy Holmes as a pair of 6-foot-3 starting forwards to go with undersized center Jamaal Brown (6-foot-7), the Titans rollled to a 92-69 victory that triggered a 5-game winning streak and the surprising NIT run. Burton was rewarded with an extended and improved contract through 2009-10. It has since been extended through 2012-13.
Burton would have been excused for running back to the comfort of West Valley College in Saratoga soon after June 6, 2003, when he achieved his long-sought goal of being a Div. I head men's basketball coach. The veteran roster he thought he was inheriting at Cal State Fullerton began to disintegrate as soon as he signed a four-year contract. A combination of academic problems, discipline, knee surgery, a broken window and a resignation eliminated five potential starters before the season began. And during the course of the campaign, the death of a player's relative, more academic problems and a mental meltdown took away three more regulars.
Through it all, Burton and his young staff remained upbeat and the result was modest improvement -- one more victory (11-17) and one higher rung (tied for fifth place) in the Big West Conference standings compared to the 2002-03 squad. With a little luck, it could have been major improvement. The Titans lost 13 games by 10 points or less and of those 13, they held second-half leads in 8 of them. They went 0-4 in overtime contests.
The 2004-05 season was a completely different story. The Titans were 3-0 in overtime and 6-0 in games decided by one or two points. They started finding ways to win instead of pondering how they were going to lose. That mentality has persisted with the Titans 9-6 in overtime in the last six seasons.
Burton has counted on the support he received from the community college coaches during his hiring process to carry over to the recruiting process.
"If you guys want to see me succeed," he told the audience when he was inducted into the California Community College Men's Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in March, 2004, "then you better send me some players and fast."
Actually, it has been transfers from four-year schools who have fueled the turnaround. Aided and abetted by 4-year point guard Bobby Brown's magnetism for well-traveled Los Angeles area players, the Titans have gotten great mileage out of Frank Robinson (East Carolina), Scott Cutley and Marcus Crenshaw (Kent State), Jermaine Harper (Virginia), Jamaal Brown (Western Kentucky), Ray Reed (Georgetown), Andrew Green (Boise State via College of Sequoias), Josh Akognon (Washington State), and, more recently, Orane Chin (South Florida) and Jer'Vaughn Johnson (San Diego State) and last season D. J. Seeley and Omondi Amoke (Cal) and Kwame Vaughn (USF).
Burton came to Fullerton after one year as an assistant coach at Fresno State. He also was an assistant to Lynn Archibald for one season (1986-87) at Utah. But where he made his many basketball connections was at West Valley Community College in Saratoga in Northern California, where he compiled a 488-158 record in 21 seasons, three times reaching the state championship game. He sent more than 80 players to Div. I programs and more than 100 to other four-year colleges.
"I can't tell you how thrilled I am to receive this opportunity," said Burton upon his hiring. "I've never been one of those guys who's moved around a lot. I've always been happy wherever I've been."
Burton won eight conference championships at West Valley and was selected conference coach of the year nine times. He was selected California Community College Coach of the Year four times.
Burton left West Valley to help former Coach Ray Lopes clean up the Fresno State program. Lopes had played for Burton and had been his assistant coach at West Valley. The 2002-03 Bulldogs went a surprising 20-8, won the Western Athletic Conference championship and saw their team grade-point average improve from 2.31 to 2.68.
In Burton's one season at Utah, the Utes went 19-10 to earn an NIT berth.
Burton graduated from Fresno State in 1968 with a degree in social sciences. He earned a masters degree a year later at Cal Poly SLO, where he began his coaching career as an assistant in 1968-69. He became a head coach in 1972 at Willow Glen High School in San Jose and compiled a 143-52 record.
Burton's wife, Toni, is a special education teacher at Brea-Olinda High School. They live in Fullerton.
