Will Burghardt
Takes Over
Richland Basketball
By: Chase Muro
The student section started chanting his name.
“We want Burghardt.”
Will Burghardt remembers sitting on the Washington State bench on Senior Night, watching the Cougars build a comfortable lead and realizing his moment might finally be coming.
His hands started sweating.
He had barely played all season. He was a walk-on, and he knew what he had signed up for. But knowing you probably aren't going to play and actually spending an entire season on the bench are two different things.
For most of his basketball life, Burghardt had been the guy with the ball in his hands.
He had been a point guard. A scorer. A starter. An all-conference-level college player.
Now he was the guy cheering for everyone else.
Still practicing. Still lifting. Still conditioning. Still expected to meet every standard his teammates did.
Just without the payoff of playing when the lights came on.
Then the crowd started chanting.
“I didn't even know that they knew who I was,” Burghardt said. “I'm just the dude that sat on the bench the whole year and cheered on my teammates.”
When his number was finally called, Burghardt had already made up his mind.
If the ball touched his hands, he was shooting it.
It found him on the left wing.
He let it fly.
And buried it.
For a player who describes himself as relatively level-headed, the celebration that followed was anything but.
The shot itself didn't change much. Washington State was already comfortably ahead. But for Burghardt, it represented years of work condensed into a few seconds.
“I put all that work in throughout my entire life, and even throughout that year, not playing and still doing the practices and the workouts and everything,” he said. “I felt like it all kind of paid off in that one moment.”
Years later, that moment says a lot about the young coach now being handed one of the biggest jobs of his life.
At 27, Burghardt is taking over Richland boys basketball after the Bombers' perfect 28-0 state championship season.
He's replacing a coach who spent 27 years leading the program.
There is no rebuild waiting for him.
There is a legacy.
And perhaps Burghardt's basketball life has prepared him for that challenge better than he realizes.
Because he's been the star.
He's been the guy fighting for minutes.
He's been the guy nobody expected to play.
He's rebuilt a losing program.
And through every version of himself, one message has remained remarkably consistent:
Have no regrets.
The Kid With the Dream
Before Longview, before college basketball and long before Richland, Burghardt was a kid shooting hoops in Clatskanie, Oregon.
It's a small town across the Columbia River from southwest Washington.
Burghardt spent his childhood there until his family moved to Longview when he was 14.
Like thousands of kids shooting in their driveways, he imagined playing college basketball someday.
The dream was real.
The expectation wasn't.
“Being a kid from a small Clatskanie town, I can be honest, I didn't expect it to go as far as it's gone,” he said.
At Mark Morris High School in Longview, Burghardt encountered someone who would help shape the way he eventually viewed coaching.
Bill Bakamus had spent decades coaching basketball and accumulated hundreds of victories.
But when Burghardt talks about him today, he doesn't start with the wins.
He talks about the person.
Years after Burghardt stopped playing for him, Bakamus remained someone he could call. He helped with recommendation letters. He made calls when Burghardt interviewed for jobs. He gave advice when he didn't have to.
“He's a guy that I really look back on and appreciate,” Burghardt said. “He's not only a great coach, but a great person.”
Burghardt didn't know it yet, but the lesson would eventually become central to his own coaching philosophy.
Basketball knowledge matters.
Relationships matter more.
No Regrets
Burghardt's college career took him from Hawaii Hilo to Linfield and ultimately Washington State.
Along the way, he experienced almost every role a basketball player can have.
At Hawaii Hilo, he was a freshman trying to earn his way onto the floor.
At Linfield, he became a three-year starter and an all-conference-level player.
At Washington State, he became the guy who didn't play.
College athletics wasn't quite what the kid shooting hoops in Clatskanie had imagined.
“College sports, man. It's not what everyone thinks it is,” Burghardt said. “There's a lot more highs and lows than you can imagine.”
There were times when he wondered why he was doing it.
Times when he wondered whether he wanted to continue.
Whenever those moments arrived, Burghardt went back to the beginning.
He thought about the six-year-old kid who wanted nothing more than to play college basketball.
There was no way he was quitting on him.
He also thought about his father.
His dad had given him a simple piece of advice that Burghardt carried throughout his career:
Have no regrets.
“Put everything you can into it,” Burghardt recalled. “Do it till you can't anymore, and look back on it and be proud of what you did, no matter what the results were.”
So at Washington State, even when the minutes weren't coming, Burghardt found another purpose.
Practice became his game.
“My main goal was, I'm just gonna try and push everyone in practice,” he said. “If there are guys that aren't ready to go, I'm gonna make coach see that really quickly, and we'll raise the level of competition.”
It wasn't glamorous.
Nobody fills a stat sheet by making a teammate better in practice.
But Burghardt learned something that would become invaluable when he moved to the other side of the sideline.
Not everybody gets to be the star.
That doesn't mean they don't matter.
“Sometimes Honesty Sucks”
Today, when a teenager walks into Burghardt's office frustrated about playing time, there's a good chance his coach understands.
Burghardt has lived it.
He's been the sixth man trying to earn more minutes.
He's been the starter.
He's been an all-conference player.
And he's been the guy who knew that regardless of how hard he practiced, he probably wasn't getting into the game.
That perspective influences how he communicates with his players.
Every kid has individual dreams.
Some want to start.
Some want more shots.
Some want to play college basketball.
And surrounding those players are parents, friends and other voices offering opinions about what they deserve.
Burghardt believes the answer is consistent communication.
More importantly, honest communication.
“You've got to be straight-up honest,” he said.
“You cannot beat around the bush because kids can see right through it.”
That doesn't mean the truth always feels good.
“Sometimes honesty sucks to hear.”
But Burghardt would rather have a difficult conversation than lose a player's trust.
Because ultimately, his philosophy is built around relationships.
“The X's and O's will take you only so far,” he said.
“You've got to have dudes that are willing to run through a wall for you.”
Building Belief
When Burghardt took over Newport High School on the Oregon Coast, he wasn't inheriting a state champion.
He inherited a program that had missed the playoffs four straight seasons.
He was young, hungry and at a point in his life where he could seemingly live in the gym.
So he did.
If one kid showed up, Burghardt was there.
If 20 showed up, he was there.
Weight room.
Gym.
Film.
Repeat.
He wasn't simply trying to install an offense or defense.
He was trying to give the program an identity.
“These kids weren't really sure who they were,” Burghardt said. “They weren't really sure what it meant to be at Newport in the basketball program.”
Burghardt wanted them to have pride in how they played, how they carried themselves and how they viewed the jersey they were wearing.
Most importantly, he wanted them to believe.
When Burghardt arrived, he sensed that Newport sometimes looked across the court at the best teams in the conference or state and felt intimidated.
That bothered him.
Why should they be scared?
The opponent was made up of high school kids just like them.
Burghardt hammered the same message.
Show up.
Work.
Get stronger.
Watch film.
Get back in the gym.
Do it again tomorrow.
Eventually, belief followed.
So did wins.
Positive Energy
If there is one thing Burghardt believes every basketball team can control, it's effort.
Defense became part of Newport's identity because defense doesn't require a player to make shots.
It requires energy.
Communication.
Effort.
Burghardt calls it positive energy.
“You're talking to each other. You're clapping for each other. You're diving on loose balls. You're helping each other up off the ground,” he said.
Because energy spreads.
“Good energy and bad energy are both contagious. But you choose what you bring.”
Miss six shots?
Take a charge.
Dive on the floor.
Create a turnover.
Suddenly the bench erupts.
The crowd gets louder.
One defensive possession becomes a transition basket.
Then another.
A team that couldn't buy a bucket is suddenly on a run.
Burghardt saw it repeatedly at Newport.
One game in particular sticks with him.
During his second season, Newport traveled to Tillamook.
The Cubs unleashed their pressure defense and jumped out to roughly a 24-0 advantage.
For Burghardt, it was the vision he had for Newport coming to life.
Pressure.
Energy.
Effort.
Suffocate the opponent.
“I think you can win 60, 70 percent of your games if you just play harder than the other team,” he said.
Newport eventually made three consecutive playoff appearances under Burghardt after missing the postseason four straight years.
But perhaps the most significant change wasn't the record.
His players started believing they were supposed to win.
Changing the Body, Changing the Mind
Burghardt's background in exercise science gave him another tool.
The weight room became central to his program.
He watched players physically transform, but what interested him just as much was what happened mentally.
Two guards he coached at Newport bought heavily into strength training and eventually went on to play college basketball.
Burghardt is quick to point out that their accomplishments belong to them.
They did the work.
But he believes the weight room helped change how they saw themselves.
“You can change your body and you can change your mindset in one offseason,” he said, “to completely change your way of playing.”
Get stronger and suddenly contact doesn't bother you as much.
Get conditioned and suddenly you're still defending late in the fourth quarter.
And when a player knows he's prepared physically, something changes between the ears.
Confidence follows.
Now, Don't Change Too Much
Burghardt's next challenge couldn't be more different.
At Newport, his job was to build belief.
At Richland, his job is to inherit it.
The Bombers are coming off a perfect 28-0 season and a state championship.
The coach Burghardt is succeeding spent 27 years in the program.
So when Burghardt arrived, he didn't start asking how he could change Richland basketball.
He started asking what needed to remain.
The traditions matter.
The routines matter.
Even the striped pants matter.
Burghardt understands that “Bomber” means something in Richland.
“I'm not going to be the same coach,” he said. “I'm just not going to be him.”
Nor should he be.
But Burghardt doesn't want his arrival to make Richland basketball unrecognizable.
The Bombers will still run.
They'll still play aggressively.
They'll still look like Richland.
“It's still gonna look like Richland basketball,” Burghardt said. “It's just gonna be a younger guy on the sideline.”
He was able to sit down with his predecessor after accepting the job and hear what the longtime coach believed needed to be preserved.
Then the former coach gave Burghardt another gift.
Space.
“He's been super supportive,” Burghardt said, “and he really kind of took a step back and let me make it my own.”
Burghardt's connection to Richland is personal, too.
His wife, Sydnee, graduated from Richland, and her family has deep roots in the community.
She's already wearing Richland basketball gear.
The family is fired up.
Burghardt knows that also means there will probably be plenty of opinions waiting for him at family dinners after games.
He laughs about it.
That's part of the job.
The Work Nobody Sees
Burghardt has discovered that being a head basketball coach involves considerably less basketball than people might imagine.
There are gear orders.
Fundraisers.
Parent meetings.
Booster meetings.
Staff decisions.
Schedules.
Branding the program.
And then there's simply carrying yourself like the person responsible for something that matters deeply to a community.
“You've got to be professional whenever you go out into town,” Burghardt said. “People know who you are.”
He estimates that sometimes 90 percent of the job is everything except coaching basketball.
But maybe that's fitting.
Because so much of Burghardt's story has been about the work nobody sees.
The practices when you know you won't play.
The conditioning.
The weight room.
The film sessions.
Showing up when only one kid comes to the gym.
The uncomfortable conversations with players.
The gear orders and fundraisers.
The thousand little responsibilities that don't produce highlights.
Until one day, sometimes, they do.
Sometimes the crowd starts chanting your name.
Sometimes the coach calls your number.
Sometimes the ball finds you on the left wing on Senior Night and years of invisible work suddenly become visible.
And sometimes the opportunity looks entirely different.
Sometimes you're 27 years old, standing on the sideline of a program that just went 28-0, knowing the person before you spent nearly three decades building something people care deeply about.
There is no guarantee of another perfect season.
There is no guarantee of another championship.
Burghardt knows enough about basketball by now to understand that results don't always cooperate with the plan.
But he also knows what he can control.
Show up.
Work.
Tell people the truth.
Bring energy.
Put the team first.
And keep going until you can't anymore.
Then someday, when it's all over, look back at everything the game gave you, from a driveway in a small Oregon town to a college bench in Pullman to the head coach's seat at Richland — and be able to say the same thing Will Burghardt has been chasing since he was a kid:
No regrets.
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Coach - Thank you very much for your time! Best of luck to you and your squad this season. God Bless.