Marmion's Burno to rejoin Kenney at Towson University

Marmion's loss has become Towson University's gain.

Rashon Burno, who on July 27 resigned his positions as head varsity basketball coach and economics and physical education teacher, officially joined the Division I Towson Tigers as of about 9:45 a.m. Thursday morning.

Having led Marmion to a cumulative 42-38 record the past three seasons, Burno will rejoin Pat Kennedy, his former coach at DePaul University. Burno has accepted the third assistant spot at Towson, a Colonial Conference school outside of Baltimore.

He'd also considered a position as assistant director of basketball operations at West Virginia working with coach Bob Huggins.

"Going to a place where I have a relationship was one of the deciding factors," said Burno, who said he had known Kennedy "probably since the eighth grade."

"It should be fun," said Burno, whose specialty at Towson will be developing wing forwards and guards.

Recruited to DePaul out of Jersey City, N.J., Burno played the point for Kennedy's Blue Demons from 1998-2002. Burno said he had been picking Kennedy's brain on coaching over the past months, when eventually a Towson assistant left the program and the opportunity arose.

"I spent a lot of time with Pat last summer, a ton of time over the phone with him over the last year," Burno said. "It should be fun to be in a different capacity on the sideline."

He'll soon relocate to Baltimore County in Maryland from his Chicago residence. Alongside Kennedy and veteran Towson assistant Danny Nee, a former 26-year college head coach, Burno said, "I can be a sponge."

The 32-year-old came to Marmion out of the private sector, Wachovia Securities, with his only prior coaching experience being with an Amateur Athletic Union team in Chicago. He credited Marmion athletic director Joe Chivari and particularly Headmaster John Milroy, who "took a risk."

"(Milroy) allowed me to grow as a coach and also as a teacher," Burno said. "Those are things I'll take away."

"We knew he did not have coaching experience," Chivari said, "but what attracted us to him was his playing experience at high levels of competition both at high school and at college. We knew that he'd be able to transfer those playing experiences to being a coach."

Chivari expects to quickly fill the coaching vacancy, possibly even before school starts on Aug. 20.

Along with last year's victories over East Aurora and DeKalb on the way to a 17-10 season, and the annual battles against Aurora Central Catholic, Burno said he'd most value the relationships created with players such as Tyler Smith, Sean Fichtel, Robert Hunt, Luke Colquist, Robby Whitehead, Greg Askwith, John Mason and Mark Peters.

"Those are guys who I'm going to walk away from being better off that they were in my life," Burno said.

He arrived in Aurora with a five-year plan to compete with every opponent and create a winning attitude. Burno achieved his plan two years early.

"I think we did OK under my watch," he said.