Willie Burden - (2009)

     Being a member of the Class of 2009 in the NC Sports Hall of Fame ought to help back home in Statesboro, Georgia for Dr. Willie Burden.
    On shelves throughout his home and stored away in boxes in his garage are the reminders of the athletic career of Burden, a member of the “baby boom” generation whose credentials have seldom been otherwise questioned.
    Except good-naturedly in his own home.
    Burden, a former North Carolina State running back, is the husband of Velma Burden and the father of teenager high school football players Willie Jr., an all-region defensive end at Statesboro High School, and freshman Freddie, a second-string tackle and right end. An older daughter, Courtney, is an accountant in Raleigh.
    “They tell me that players in my era didn’t know what football is about,” Burden said on the phone.
    “So, I plan on taking full advantage of this (being inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame). I plan on rubbing it in a bit.”
    Not that Burden needs confirmation even in his own home that his career as a running back at N.C. State and then as one of the all-time stars of the Canadian Football League was exceptional.
    He appears at tonight’s induction banquet already highly decorated as an athlete. He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2001 and he was the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player in 1975. His No. 10 jersey has been retired by the Calgary Stampeders, for whom he played for eight seasons after turning down invitations to join the Detroit Lions, who had drafted him in the sixth round, and the Portland Storm who selected him in the 17th round of the World Football League draft.
    In 2006, a Canadian sports television network listed Burden among the CFL’s 50 greatest players of the modern era.
    Burden’s star began to rise when he starred as a running back at Raleigh’s Enloe High School, then stayed close to home collegiate by signing with the Wolfpack. For three seasons, from 1971 through 1973, he was among the best running backs ever produced by the Atlantic Coast Conference finishing his collegiate career with 2,529 and picking up the ACC’s Player of the Year award in 1973.
    In Canada, by his second season he was breaking team and league rushing records putting up a new CFL single season rushing mark of 1896 yards in 1975. An incredible 238 of those yards came in a single game on November 2, 1975, against Winnipeg, tying a league record. In his eight seasons in Calgary, Burden amassed 6,234 yards, fourth best in team history.
    He remains one of Canada’s all-time sports heroes.
    Once retired as a player, Burden decided to remain active in athletics academically. He received his masters degree in sports administration from Ohio University, then became the assistant athletic director at Tennessee Tech while he worked on his doctorate in education, which was conferred in 1990.
    After a brief tour as an assistant athletic director at Ohio, Burden came home to become athletic director at North Carolina A&T.
    Burden is in his 11th year as an associate professor in sports management at Georgia Southern University.
    His has been a career that has been acknowledged beyond the field of competition. In 2005, Burden was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Boys & Girls Clubs of America in recognition of his work with young people.
    Now he comes home once again, this time as one of the 2009 inductees into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.
    “Tremendous,” he said in an earlier interview. “It’s just a tremendous honor. I hope my kids are properly impressed.”