As a coach, Dale Burgman is a sportswriters’ dream.

He is the master of sarcasm, and he is never afraid to say what he is thnking. That makes for a great interview.

Dale has pretty much coached every sport, too. Before retiring as a teacher at Butte High School and moving on to teach and coach in North Dakota, Dale coached volleyball, softball, track and boys’ and girls’ basketball for the Bulldogs. He also officiated most of those sports.

Dale even coached swimming in Scobey, and his team placed third at State. The kicker is that Dale says he can’t swim.

Perhaps his most impressive coaching performance, though, came on a season when Dale’s Butte High volleyball team won just two matches. That was in 2015.

That Dale coached at all that year, might be one of the most impressive things a coach has ever done. About a week before the season started, Dale’s son Kyle and his friend and roommate Casey Boyle were killed in a car crash on East Park Street.

Nobody would have blamed Dale if he would have walked away. But he worked every day for the girls on that team, trying to make them better in the most difficult of circumstances.

A year after the tragedy, the Burgman/Boyle Classic, a Butte High and Butte Central alumni basketball game, was started to raise money for the Burgman/Boyle Scholarship.

It was a great way to keep the memory and spirt of those two outstanding young men alive. So far, the two families have raised and given out more than $100,000 in scholarships for students at Butte High and Butte Central.

While the Burgman/Boyle alumni game is no longer played, the “Boyles Buddies Game” lives on. That is game for Special Olympians who were taught and coached by Casey Boyle. 

The game will be played at 6:30 p.m. next Thursday, Aug. 10, at East Middle School.

Listen in to this podcast as Dale talks about that game. Listen as he talks about his coaching career and some technical fouls he picked up along the way. Listen as he talks about some of the coaches and officials he worked with. 

Listen to hear how he and his family picked up the pieces and somehow carried on after the horrific tragedy of Aug. 10, 2015.

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