A college soccer veteran with 23 years experience in the profession, including 10 years in the Missouri Valley Conference, Joe Burger is in his third year as an assistant for the Bradley Soccer program.
In addition to previous assistant coach positions with MVC rivals Missouri State (1999-2000) and Drake (2006-11), Burger twice has launched soccer programs as a head coach. He oversaw the introduction of both men’s and women’s varsity soccer at Barton County Community College in 2001 and he led the BCCC men’s team to a 63-30-11 (.659) record and a pair of NJCAA/adidas top 10 national finishes during his five-year tenure. Burger came to Bradley from South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, where he launched the men’s soccer program in 2012.
“In my opinion, Joe's on-field coaching, recruiting ties, player identification and the diversity of both head and assistant coaching experience put him among the most-experienced assistant coaches in all of college soccer,” said Bradley head coach Jim DeRose. “Joe has been a head coach at the junior college, NCAA Division II, ODP and club level and has had success everywhere."
“Additionally, Joe has extensive ties to the MVC, having served as an assistant at both Missouri State and Drake during some of their most-successful seasons in school and MVC history," DeRose added. "Working alongside both Jon Leamy (Missouri State) and Sean Holmes (Drake), Joe has been with two highly-successful and long-serving coaches who place a great deal of emphasis on developing student-athletes, both academically and athletically, which similarly are extremely important to us.”
Burger’s tenure at both Drake and Missouri State coincided with some of the most-successful years in the history of both programs. Burger helped Drake to a 63-41-16 (.592) record and back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, capped by a run to the quarterfinals of the 2009 NCAA Men’s Soccer Championship. Those 2009 Bulldogs set the school record with 15 wins and climbed to a program-best No. 8 in the NSCAA/adidas national rankings.
In addition to Drake’s success on the field during Burger’s tenure, the Bulldogs also earned the NSCAA/adidas Team Academic Award five straight years from 2006-10, while producing five NSCAA/adidas Scholar All-Americans, three CoSIDA Academic All-Americans and 21 MVC Scholar-Athletes.
Burger’s first taste of the Missouri Valley Conference came during a 2-year stint at Missouri State from 1999-2000. The 1999 Bears enjoyed an undefeated regular season and completed a sweep of the MVC regular-season and tournament titles by rallying to beat Bradley, 2-1, in overtime in the MVC Tournament championship game at the old Becker Park. Missouri State earned top five national rankings in both the 1999 and 2000 seasons.
In between Valley assistant coach positions, Burger led Barton County C.C. to championship success and was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 2016. In just the second year of the program’s existence, Burger led the Cougars to the 2002 NJCAA Central District championship and Region VI crown, followed by three straight KJCCC titles in 2003, 2004 and 2005. He coached five NJCAA All-Americans and a pair of NJCAA Academic All-Americans at Barton County.
In addition to his coaching responsibilities at Barton County, Burger served as president of the NJCAA Region VI and Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference coaches associations from 2002-06. A veteran youth soccer coach, Burger also has served as a United States Youth Soccer Region II staff coach from 2011-15 and he boasts seven years coaching experience at the state level in Kansas and Missouri in the Olympic Development Program.
A two-year letterman at UMKC from 1992-93, Burger still ranked 10th in program history for career points at the time of his graduation and he served as team captain in his second season with the Kangaroos. Burger began his collegiate coaching career at UMKC and helped the Kangaroos to the first two 10-win seasons (1994, 1996) in program history, as well as the 1996 Mid-Continent Conference West division title.