Burckley Hired to Guide MSU Billings Golf Teams (Oct. 29, 2003)
BILLINGS, MT – Dr. Gary Gray,
Director of Intercollegiate Athletics for
MSU Billings, announced today that Roger Burckley
has been hired as the school’s new men’s and women’s
golf coach. Burckley replaces Dave Doherty, who
resigned earlier this fall, and will begin
immediately.
“We’re very excited to have
Roger join our staff,” said Dr. Gray. “He’s young
and has a lot of energy that he is willing to devote
to growing Yellowjacket golf into a competitive
Division II program. With men’s and women’s golf
becoming official conference sponsored sports
beginning in 2004-2005, now is an opportune time for
someone with Roger’s talents to really move forward
with this program.”
A 1995 graduate of Park High
School in Livingston where he was a two-time
all-state selection, Burckley played college golf at
Palm Beach Atlantic College, an NAIA school in
Florida, and at Rocky Mountain College in Billings.
He played two years at Rocky Mountain, where he
graduated in 2001 with a degree in business
management. Burckley was a two-time captain for the
Bears and earned all-conference honors both years.
In his final semester at Rocky,
Burckley assisted with the men’s golf program.
After graduating, he worked for two years at
Yellowstone Country Club as an Assistant Golf
Professional and is currently working at Mitchell
Golf in Billings in sales and fitting. Burckley
plans to continue working for Mitchell Golf while
coaching the Yellowjackets.
MSU Billings started men’s and
women’s NCAA II golf programs in 2002-2003 and the
Yellowjackets are beginning their second full year
of competition. With the NCAA fall season mostly
wrapped up around the country, Burckley says he
plans to focus on scheduling for the spring
championship season and filling out his remaining
roster positions.
“This program, as the only NCAA
school in the state with both men’s and women’s
golf, has unlimited potential,” said Burckley. “We
have a lot of Montana talent on the team that I’m
excited to see compete against the top teams from
the West. We’re going to schedule seven events for
the spring and I think we’ll have a good schedule.
I’m excited to get started because we’re going to
have a team that will represent Montana regionally
and nationally and I’m looking forward to building a
program that will compete nationally.”
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