Longtime coach Eddie Burke dies at 63

Eddie Burke, 63, the rumpled epitome of a Philadelphia gym rat, one whose coaching resume included Drexel's first NCAA tournament appearance and back-to-back Philadelphia Catholic League titles with different teams, died unexpectedly at home yesterday. The cause of death was unknown.

Mr. Burke's playing career at St. Joseph's Prep and La Salle University and his long tenure as a coach in the Catholic League and at Drexel allowed him to cross paths with most of the city's basketball elite over the last half-century.

"He was a unique Philadelphia basketball personality, and we've been losing a lot of those people," said St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli, who played for Mr. Burke on St. Joseph's Prep's 1971 Catholic League championship team. "He touched so many eras of Philadelphia basketball and so many of its personalities."

Mr. Burke coached Martelli in high school, played at La Salle when Temple coach Fran Dunphy was a freshman there, and hired Villanova coach Jay Wright as a Drexel assistant in 1986.

"He was very instrumental in mentoring me," Dunphy said. "He's really going to be missed."

Dunphy said he often saw Mr. Burke at the Havertown bar, Burke's Inn, that he and his family have operated for 70 years.

"Eddie had been running the place in recent years, and he was really enjoying himself," Dunphy said. "He gave himself the 3-to-6 shift."

Whether he was in his office or at his bar, Mr. Burke loved to tell stories about Philadelphia basketball. His knowledge of Catholic League history was encyclopedic.

He was a crew-cut junior point guard at the Prep and a member of its 1962 Catholic League championship team. Future NBA coach Matt Guokas, Tom Duff, Bill McFadden, and Vince Curran were also on that team, which lost the city title game to West Philadelphia, 61-52.

A year later, Mr. Burke led the Catholic League in scoring. He went on to play three years at La Salle and, following graduation in 1967, returned to the Prep as an assistant. He soon became the head man there, and his 1971 team, led by Mo Howard, won another Catholic League title.

"He made coaching personal," recalled Martelli, a member of that team. "It was about you as a person. He used a lot of humor. He made you want to practice, and he made you want to play.

"He was more than just your coach. He was a part of your life. He was almost mythical. I'm just stunned."

Those 1962 and 1971 championships, which Mr. Burke had a large hand in winning, were St. Joseph's only titles between 1947 and 1973.

In 1972, he went to St. Thomas More and promptly won another league crown and his second consecutive Catholic League coach of the year award. When that Southwest Philadelphia school closed in 1975, Mr. Burke moved on to Bishop McDevitt and West Catholic.

Drexel hired him in 1977, and in 14 years as the Dragons' head coach, he compiled a 205-189 record. That victory total makes him the winningest coach in school history. Among the assistants who worked for him were Wright, in 1986-87; Walt Fuller, now a La Salle assistant; and Bucknell coach Pat Flannery.

Mr. Burke's 1985-86 team, led by Michael Anderson and by Fuller, won the old East Coast Conference title and the school's first NCAA bid.

Seeded 15th, the Dragons lost their first-round game to second-seeded Louisville, 93-73. Louisville went on to win the national championship, and Anderson later became the first Drexel player to reach the NBA.

After Drexel, Mr. Burke returned to the Prep, where he coached again from 1992 to '99. Only the Prep's current coach, Speedy Morris, has accumulated more wins there than Mr. Burke's 101. Mr. Burke served as that school's director of alumni relations until his retirement in 2004.

Since then, Mr. Burke had been reinvigorating the family's bar. According to friends, doctors had recently diagnosed cancer, and he had been preparing to undergo treatments when he died.

"He was loving life," Martelli said. "He was turning the bar into a sports bar, upgrading the menu, really enjoying himself."

Mr. Burke always liked to note that he was the fourth of five children and the first not to enter religious life. Two older brothers became priests and an older sister a nun.

Mr. Burke is survived by his wife, B.A.; three children, Maureen, Brendan and Melissa; and a grandson, Burke. Funeral arrangements were to be announced.