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Overcast A coach for all seasons
In what’s become an era of specialization, the three-sport high school athlete is a dying breed, albeit far from extinct. Finding a three-sport varsity head coach is much more difficult, but they do exist.
With all due respect to those pulling triple duty in cross-country, winter track and field, and spring track and field in what seems like every school in the Herald’s coverage area, coaching three entirely different sports put Baldwin’s Darius Burton, East Rockaway’s Joe Lores, Long Beach’s T.J. Burke and West Hempstead’s Chris Van Kovics in select company.
Burton follows in father’s footsteps
A two-sport star at Baldwin High School, Burton grew up playing soccer and basketball while watching his father, Darius Sr., coach sports at the high school level year-round. The younger Burton played four years of college basketball at Hofstra, where he ranks third all-time on the assists and steals list, and one year of soccer. As a graduate student, he won America East Rookie of the Year in soccer. “I still get teased about being the oldest Rookie of the Year,” said Burton, who added he’s living a dream working in the Physical Education department at Baldwin and coaching girls’ soccer, boys’ basketball, and girls’ badminton.
“To give back to a community that was so good to me is great,” said Burton, who has guided the boys’ basketball team to 199 victories, including five Nassau Class AA championships and two Long Island Class AA titles in a 12-year span. “Coaching three sports is tough,” he added. “I’m at school six days a week and never home early, but it’s something I love to do.”
Basketball has always been Burton’s first love, he said. The 1993 Baldwin graduate earned Nassau Player of the Year honors as a senior, and after a successful career at Hofstra played one season for the Morris Revolution in the ABA. He had an opportunity to play professionally in Germany but instead opted for a career in teaching and coaching.
Coaching sons a dream for Lores
Joe Lores remembers a time when his twin sons, Joey and Mikey, were crawling around the gym floor at East Rockaway while their father conducted basketball practice. “They almost spent as much time in the gym as they did our house,” the longtime Rocks coach said.
