Burton put Warsaw in sports elite.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

He never orchestrated a touchdown for the Ducks, but he taught students who scored jobs throughout professional sports. He never diagrammed a play for the Oregon basketball team, but he had the phone number of NBA commissioner David Stern in his Rolodex. He wasn't on the cover of sports magazines, but he wrote for them and was interviewed by them - and by talk shows from Los Angeles to London.

If Oregon can rightfully claim a cutting-edge image in athletics - from the newest Nike football uniforms, to the bold billboards in New York City in recent seasons, to thoroughly modern facilities for football and (on the way) basketball - then Rick Burton not only commented on all that but contributed to that image by nurturing a cutting-edge academic program, the UO's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center.

Because Oregon has been a vibrant place in the major sports, an emerging national presence, and the evolution of the Warsaw Center has been a facet of that.

And so Burton's departure after six years as the program's executive director to become the commissioner of Australia's National Basketball League - the David Stern of Down Under, effective last week - creates a void similar to the one that would exist if Oregon lost Mike Bellotti or Ernie Kent.

As those coaches have raised the stature their programs - and thus their jobs - so has Burton developed Warsaw Center. His successor (by January) will inherit a national platform on sports business issues.

"We've taken Jim Warsaw's vision - that his alma mater, the U of O, could create leaders for the sports industry - and started fulfilling that dream," Burton said.

"We've turned out students the last seven or eight years who have gone on to jobs with the NFL, the NBA and the U.S. Olympic Committee who are now getting promoted and taking on positions of real authority and responsibility in the sports industry.

"And they weren't hired because they were the cabana boy where an executive spent his vacation, but because they were students who came through Oregon, got an MBA, specialized in sports business and had a knowledge of our industry."

Burton, 45, came to the Warsaw Center in 1995 as an instructor. He's seen the growth of Oregon athletics since that unexpected Rose Bowl season in 1994. "They've jumped into hyperspace," he said.

As a sports marketing expert, Burton has high praise for UO athletics director Bill Moos, and he offers this perspective on that famous billboard of an Oregon quarterback near Madison Square Garden:

"The Joey Harrington banner in New York was a masterstroke of saying `We have something to say.'

"There are parties who say universities shouldn't promote that way, but they forget that athletic directors are under a fair amount of pressure to have their revenue sports be profitable to underwrite their non-revenue sports. ... Somebody has got to pay for that, and university senates and state senators aren't going to give more money to Oregon to have better intercollegiate athletics.

"The pressure falls on a Bill Moos to say, `How am I going to make a marketing statement that is ultimately going to influence the value of our sports properties?' And let's not put our heads in the sand and say it doesn't matter how we do on the football field or the basketball court. It matters enormously in terms of ticket revenues, licenses and broadcast rights fees, and all those economic elements underwrite wrestling and volleyball."

As commissioner of the 12-team NBL, Burton's first mission will be to build a stronger fan and sponsor base. In that, he'll bring some of his experiences at Oregon, where he believes that the tradition of kids playing catch on the Autzen Stadium turf after games is "the single coolest thing in sports in America."

His farewell to Oregon: "I'm going to miss it a lot, because I've been able to be a fan, at a time when Oregon was one of the most spectacular places in America to be a fan."