Earlier this week, Texas Tech head basketball coach was on with Chris Level and Aaron Dickens on Double-T 97.3 to discuss a handful of topics, but Beard also revealed who was going to be part of his coaching staff. Beard confirmed that Mark Adams, Brian Burg, Chris Ogden, Darryl Dora and Charlie Burgess would be part of the staff. If I had to guess, Adams, Burg and Ogden are probably the assistant coaches and Dora and Burgess would fill other roles (I think coaches are only allowed to have three assistants). Let’s learn a bit about those other coaches.
Mark Adams: There is some question about what role Adams could have with Beard’s staff, but at Little Rock, Adams was an assistant coach and not a director player personnel like he was at Texas Tech. Adams was previously at Howard College for the better part of his recent career before a year at Texas Tech and then a year at Little Rock. I personally loved it when Adams was hired at Texas Tech and was sad when he left. His JUCO connections never had time to take hold, but there is no doubt that Texas has significant JUCO basketball population that was never taken advantage of during Tubby Smith’s time
Brian Burg: Burg was on Beard’s staff at Little Rock and before that, Burg was at North Carolina Central University. I link to the NCCU site because that’s were we learn that Burg played basketball at Cisco Junior College and is originally from the Houston area. Burg appeared to be in and around basketball once he graduated, spending time at Garden Community College and then Western Texas College, and then moved to the Southeast, where he was at Middle Tennessee and then at NCCU. The key here is that Burg is essentially from Texas, although he’s spent a lot of time out of state for a good while. And being from Houston probably has it’s advantages as that will probably be Burg’s main recruiting area. And this will be a theme for Beard. Texas guys that have West Texas ties.
Chris Ogden: Ogden was previously at Tennessee with Rick Barnes in his first year at Tennessee. Ogden has been Barnes’ “guy” as he played at Texas under Barnes and then worked his way up the coaching ranks at Texas, working from student assistant coach, to administrative assistant to assistant coach. Ogden was born in Perryton, which is as close to Oklahoma as you can get without actually living there, close to Dumas and Dalhart, and went to high school at Seminole. Ogden was a guy that recruited really well for Texas (of course, it helps being at Texas, but he should get credit too), getting guys like Avery Bradley, Tristan Thompson, Cameron Ridley and Myles Turner.
Charlie Burgess: Once Burgess graduated from Texas Tech, from what I can tell, he started playing international basketball, most recently playing in a Danish basketball league for Randers Dimbria as well as playing in Hungary for Egis Kormend. In fact, in March of last year, the official site featured Burgess:
Charlie Burgess | 06,07 | HARLEM, NEW YORK – After starting the season with Randers in Denmark, Charlie Burgess switched to Körmend in Hungary in December. Burgess is averaging 9.6 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.2 steals for Körmend. His contract with Körmend expired in February and he is currently a free agent. Burgess came to Texas Tech after spending two seasons at Howard College. He is in his seventh season of professional basketball and has played for seven different teams.
It would be nice if Burgess had some international connections for recruiting.
Darryl Dora: Luckily, we know all about Darrly Dora because our own DanSwany interviewed Dora before the Kansas game this year. Dora was previously playing in Japan and I’m almost all but sure that Dora has moved back to West Texas (not sure where) and got his degree from Texas Tech and according to Beard, Dora will have some sort of position with Texas Tech basketball and Coach Beard’s staff.