Abington Heights graduate Becky Burke continued her rapid climb through the women’s basketball coaching ranks this week with her appointment as the new head coach at the University of South Carolina Upstate, a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I program.

“I’m just super thankful and humbled for the chance to lead this program,” Burke said in a video statement about the job on YouTube.

Burke went 48-14 during two years as head coach of the University of Charleston in West Virginia. The 2008 graduate of Abington Heights, where she scored more than 2,000 points and was a state Player of the Year, guided the team to the NCAA Division II Tournament in 2018-19, her first season there.

“For the lack of a better term, she had a swagger about her that just speaks volumes and I could see how she could be a really effective recruiter,” USC Upstate athletic director Daniel Feig said in another video the school posted on YouTube. “I started digging into her background and I was impressed with her career, both her coaching career and as a student-athlete herself.

“She started out as the high school Player of the Year in the state of Pennsylvania before transitioning to Louisville where she was a four-year starter on a team for a national championship and played in a Sweet 16 another season and then, ultimately, she went pro.

“Studying her background, she possessed all of the characteristics we were looking for in a head coach here at USC Upstate.”

USC Upstate moved up from Division II to Division I in 2007-08 when it joined the Atlantic Sun Conference. It has played the last two seasons in the Big South Conference.

Tammy George, the school’s all-time winner in coaching victories, resigned in May after 15 seasons there. The Spartans were 4-16 in the conference and had reached the Big South quarterfinals with a first-round victory when their season ended at 10-20 because of the shutdown in college sports forced by the coronavirus.

“There has been an extreme amount of growth so far, and I truly feel like we’re in position now to start winning,” Burke said. “ … I know for a fact that we’re going to play extremely hard.”

Burke made an immediate impact at Abington Heights where she was a four-year all-star. She started in the national championship game as a freshman at Louisville.

At Louisville, Burke ranked fourth in school history in career 3-pointers. The 1,000-point scorer finished second in the State Farm College 3-Point Shootout held in conjunction with the 2012 Women’s Final Four.

"I'm very excited for Becky as she has done a tremendous job at every stop she's had along the way to this point of her career,” said Jeff Walz, who coached Burke at Louisville, said, according to a story on the USC Upstate website. “This is just the next step for her. She's had success at every stop. She's very passionate and knowledgeable, and just does a fantastic job of getting the best out of her student-athletes.

“She coaches the same way she played which is with a lot of passion and heart and fire, and I think that is going to continue to lead her to great success."

After beginning her college coaching career with a pair of one-year assignments as an assistant, Burke started the program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics school in Prescott, Ariz. She led the new program to two winning seasons and a national ranking during a 21-win second season. In her debut at Charleston, Burke led the team to a 12-win improvement, going 25-7 and making the school’s first NCAA appearance in five years.

“I want to thank everybody at Charleston the last two years,” said Burke, who was is coming off a third straight season of more than 20 wins. “That opportunity there; our team there and the level of success we had has enabled me to have this opportunity at USC Upstate and I’m so thankful for that.”

Burke was recognized as the only head coach on the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association 30 Under-30 List of rising coaches in 2019.