There's no reason why you can't excel as an athlete and a student, Brian Burke told a group of student-athletes at Olds College.“I think there are a lot of people that assume going in, that to be an elite athlete, you can't be an elite student. That's ridiculous. It's about time management and commitment. It's that simple,” Burke said in an interview following his speech. “And there are a lot of examples. There are really good NHL players who were great students.”Burke, the president of hockey operations for the Calgary Flames, was in Olds to speak at a dinner hosted by a new chapter of Ducks Unlimited on March 27. In the afternoon, he stopped by the Duncan Marshall Place lecture hall at the college to speak with student-athletes about the importance of academics.Time management was a major reason Burke was able to graduate from Providence College's history program as a student-athlete with the highest grade point average, he said. With his success in the classroom, Burke gained acceptance to the Harvard and Georgetown law schools, as well as becoming a Rhodes Scholarship finalist.He later signed with the Philadelphia Flyers.“So it's possible to do both and do both extremely well,” Burke said.“It's discipline. It's commitment and saying, I'm going to get that grade point average I want to get and I have to make sacrifices to do that so all those useless activities are going to wait.”Doing well in school was a point to be taken seriously considering the unlikelihood that a collegiate athlete will turn pro.According to Burke, a school like the University of Notre Dame, which he described as one of the “football factories,” would send four players on its roster to professional football each year. Only two would play longer than four years.“So assume that you're not going to make your living as an athlete,” he said. “Make sure you do the academic part of it as well. I never planned on playing pro hockey. I never dreamed of playing pro hockey. But I worked my ass off and I got a chance to do it.”The Flames president's speech lasted about 10 minutes but he filled the rest of the hour by answering a myriad of questions ranging from personal to hockey-related inquiries.But Burke also reminded the athletes of their responsibilities on campus. He urged them to be leaders at school and to intervene when they see bullying or wrongdoing.“People know who the athletes are and they respect them,” he said. “And they're in a position often, of leadership and they can influence behaviour on a campus and I encourage the athletes to do that. Do the right thing, make sure people act the right way.”“So be a leader while you're here,” Burke told the audience. “If people are doing something stupid, don't go along with it. Stop it. If you see bullying, you see women being mistreated, intervene. You can be a leader in the proper and respectful treatment of the (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community.”[email protected]
