Jason Burke sat in the first row of the stands at Welsh-Ryan Arena twirling a basketball in his hands and reminiscing about old times. The junior chuckled when he remembered the reaction he got from his teammates upon arriving at Northwestern.
“They used to call me a nerd,” Burke quipped.
While Burke’s varsity-athlete status may exempt him from the nerd title, his intelligence certainly gives him the right to sport a pocket protector and thick-framed glasses.
Burke, of Plano, Texas, was an International Baccalaureate scholar in high school and earned the equivalent of a 4.0 grade point average. Burke is majoring in psychology and he aspires to go to law school – he even turned down Harvard for NU.
But his knowledge isn’t confined to the classroom. He also uses it on the court.
“It doesn’t take him long to figure things out,” NU head coach Bill Carmody said. “He’s smart outside the lines, but he’s also a smart player.”
Burke will use his brain to try and get NU back on the winning track this weekend as the Wildcats (10-7) travel to Buffalo (9-9) Saturday for a 6 p.m. game.
Burke said his decision to pick the Big Ten over the Ivy League wasn’t an easy one, but it’s one he doesn’t regret. Despite Harvard’s elite image, the 6-foot-6, 207-pound swingman said he believes his NU education is equal to the one he could have received in Cambridge, Mass.
The Big Ten’s athletic superiority and its scholarship opportunities – Harvard does not award sports scholarships – also contributed to Burke’s decision to come to Evanston.
But what confirmed his choice to head to the Midwest was a meeting with then-NU head coach Kevin O’Neill, who is now an assistant with the Detroit Pistons.
“When Kevin O’Neill was coach, he came in and we had our home visit and he sold me,” Burke said. “This is almost an Ivy League institution basically, so I think I made the right decision to come here.”
Although Burke’s intelligence is apparent, NU forward Tavaras Hardy takes his teammate’s academic accolades with a grain of salt.
“I think his parents pushed him hard when he was younger,” said Hardy, grinning. “He’s not a great brainiac. He’s not the smartest guy in the world.”
Burke’s intellect has given him a masterful knowledge of the game, Carmody said, which makes him NU’s most versatile player. He can play all five positions, Hardy said.
And while scoring is not Burke’s forte, he has been coming off the bench to provide a boost for the Cats all season. The sideline also allows Burke to see the game from a perspective that the starters don’t always get.
“I know what’s going on on the floor – I know where everybody is,” Burke said. “I know where I need to be, and I think I just use that to help myself and my teammates.”
Burke, however, sometimes over-analyzes situations, Carmody said, and that can hamper his play. While Carmody said Burke has strong fundamentals, he said the 20-year-old needs to develop a killer instinct and not hesitate with the ball.
“We try to work with him to get him to be more aggressive,” Carmody said, “because smart guys don’t like to be aggressive. If he recognizes what he’s capable of doing, then he can really be something.”
But as Carmody has proven with his Princeton offense, there’s still a place for smart basketball players on the hardwood.
“You want guys to be able to do a lot of different things,” Carmody said. “He’s a talented kid, no question. That’s good for the program.”
