*Bonus Episode*

With it being the season of giving, I'm joined by coaches Adam Nelson, David Grace, Rex Walters, and Steve Howes as we give out Christmas gifts to some college coaches and teams:

-Adam Nelson gives Christmas presents to Boston College, Chicago State, Iona, and LSU... Sort of...

-Steve Howes gives Christmas presents to Georgetown, Duke, Villanova, and Purdue

-David Grace gives Christmas presents to Gonzaga, Kentucky, UCLA, and JMU

-Rex Walters gives Christmas presents to Maryland, Oakland, Kansas, Michigan State

Robert Burlingham shares his journey from bagging groceries to becoming a coach at the NCAA Division One level.

He began his coaching career as a student manager Nick McDevitt at UNC Asheville in 2013. He transferred to Western Carolina - where he continued serving as a student manager - this time under [the late] Larry Hunter. After graduating in2016 he returned to UNC Asheville and spent the spring and summer there before accepting an Assistant Coach position at Spire Academy. Coach Burlingham remained at Spire until January of 2017 before moving onto Carolina Day School.

WVU Tech hired him as the top Assistant Coach and he helped Bob Williams guide the Golden Bears to a 30-5 record, River States Conference regular season and conference tournament championship, and advancement to the NAIA National Tournament second round. Following the historic run at WVU Tech, he accepted a Graduate Assistant position at Central Michigan under Keno Davis, where he remained until 2021 when he was named the Director of Basketball Operations at McNeese State.

Coach Will Long shares his journey from playing JV basketball at Reinhardt University to recently being hired as an Assistant Coach at Oglethorpe University.

After playing JV basketball at Reinhardt he was moved up to the varsity team as a senior, after graduating he went on to be the Head Coach at multiple high schools - including his alma mater, Howard School.

He's spent time coaching at Emmanuel College and Reinhardt University as well, Coach Long has a knack for teaching the game and being a detail oriented coach. He's worked camps at UNC, Kennesaw State, Mercer, and Nike Basketball in addition to having worked in radio.

In addition to coaching at Brandon Hall School the past few seasons, he married his college sweetheart, served as the Assistant AD earned his MBA in sports management from Shorter, and became a father! A lifelong learner, Will has genuine relationships with his coaching peers and all of his players. 

Coach Dwight Thorne II shares his journey from growing up in Texas to having a stellar career at Colorado, playing professionally - and now as a college basketball coach.

He was a standout at Colorado under Ricardo Patton and Jeff Bzdelik before embarking on a professional basketball playing career in Germany, the NBA Development League, Athens, and then Croatia.

Brian Gregory hired him as a Graduate Assistant at Georgia Tech and after the season he decided to move on to the University of Denver to serve on Rodney Billups coaching staff as their Director of Basketball Operations - and later as an Assistant Coach.

This past summer he returned to his home state of Texas to serve as an Assistant Coach at UT Arlington under Greg Young.