Lander Names Jeff Burkhamer New Men's Basketball Coach

GREENWOOD – Lander athletics director Jeff May announced today (Thursday) that Armstrong Atlantic State University’s Jeff Burkhamer was selected to be the Bearcats’ new head men’s basketball coach.

“We could not be more pleased that Coach Burkhamer will be in charge of Bearcat basketball,” said May. “He has experienced tremendous success in his coaching career and is a very skilled recruiter.”

“From more than 150 applicants,” added Lander President Dan Ball, “we interviewed five outstanding individuals and one of those was the right fit for Lander – Jeff Burkhamer. We are very pleased he will be a member of the Lander family.”

According to May, Burkhamer, along with his wife Diane and daughters Melissa and Lindsey, will be introduced to the Lander community at a later date. He is currently recruiting for the upcoming season.

Burkhamer replaces Bruce Evans, who resigned the position after the 2008-09 season.

"I am excited about getting to Lander and getting started," said Burkhamer. "Lander has a good base of players coming back and we want to add to that and put together a good, quality team right away."

For the past seven years, Burkhamer led Peach Belt Conference rival Armstrong Atlantic to a 134-73 record, including this year’s 23-7 mark. His overall 12-year head coaching record is 289-114, a .718 winning percentage. AASU advanced to the NCAA national tournament four times under Burkhamer, including this past season.

Prior to coaching at AASU, Burkhamer was the associate head coach at NCAA Division I Marshall University, helping guide the Thundering Herd to a 70-44 record in the Mid-American Conference.

He also served as the head coach at Santa Fe Community College (1994-98) in Gainesville, Fla. He led the Saints to two Mid-Florida Conference titles. He earned National Junior College Coach of the Year honors by College Sport Magazine in 1995-96 as the Saints set a school record 28 wins, including 21 straight to start the season. In four seasons, the Saints went 97-31 under Burkhamer.

From 1991-94, he was the assistant coach for the Grand Rapids Hoops of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA), the developmental league of the NBA.

Burkhamer’s first head coaching position was at North Greenville College (1989-91), where he posted an overall 58-10 record in two seasons and earned NJCAA Region 10 Coach of the Year honors twice.

He started his coaching career as an assistant coach at Winthrop University (1984-85), then moved to Charleston Southern (1985-87) and Morehead State (1987-89).

A graduate of Alderson-Broaddus College in Philippi, West Virginia, Burkhamer, who earned a bachelor’s degree in secondary education in 1984 and his master’s in health and physical education from Morehead State in 1989, was a four-year letterman for the Battlers in basketball and baseball and holds the school’s all-time assist mark with 646. He was inducted into the Battler Hall of Fame in 2001 and was honored by the Parkersburg News and Sentinel in 2004 as a member of their silver anniversary team, spotlighting the top high school players from the Parkersburg area over the last 25 years.