LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – When retiring Spalding University athletic director Roger Burkman was invited to see the new Athletic Hall of Fame room, there was one detail he nearly overlooked.
"My focus was right here on the plaques and the pictures, so it took me a minute just looking at it, then I looked above it and said 'there's my signature'," Burkman said at Friday’s induction ceremony.
Spalding surprised Burkman by naming the Hall of Fame after him. He’s also one of the seven members inducted into Spalding’s first class of the athletic hall of fame.
Burkman started his tenure in 2005 when he was hired by university president Tori Murden McClure.
Roger Burkman was honored by Spalding University on May 20, 2022.
"I did not let Roger Burkman see the athletic facilities before I hired Roger Burkman," she said. "I kept meeting him in other places because they didn’t look like they look like now. Roger built the athletic program. We were running what amounted to a college program on a high school budget."
The program went from NAIA Division II to NCAA Division III as Burkman oversaw the transition and the addition of several improvements to Spalding’s facilities, including the $7 million dollar turf athletic fields which opened in 2019.
"Our conference opponents would come and play us and I would stand out in the parking lot and I'd listen to these kids as they got off their bus and they're going, 'Oh my gosh! Look what Spalding has,'" Burkman said.
Burkman, who is retiring this year, says his real legacy will be the people he hired who are still part of the program. He will also continue to work with Spalding, on a part-time basis, to help raise funds for the university.
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