Burr-Kirven Found Right Fit at UW

By Rich Myhre

By Washington Huskies

September 4^th, 2018

As a boy growing up in Menlo Park, Calif., Ben Burr-Kirven lived only a mile or two from the campus of Stanford University in nearby Palo Alto.

Given the school’s proximity and his love of sports, Burr-Kirven was often at Stanford Stadium for Cardinal games. “I went because I liked watching football,” he said. “But I was never a big Stanford fan.”

By his senior year at Sacred Heart Prep in Menlo Park, Burr-Kirven was drawing recruiting interest from a number of college football programs, including Stanford. A 6-foot, 200-pound running back and linebacker at the time, and a good student as well, he was eager to give the Cardinal a look because “you obviously want to get offered by your hometown team.”

The problem was, Stanford had doubts about Burr-Kirven.

“The way they play defense,” he said, “I was kind of a ‘tweener’ for them. (The Cardinal coaches thought) I was too small to play inside linebacker for them, and they didn’t think I was fast enough to play safety.”

Given their uncertainty, there was no scholarship offer. “They wanted me to walk-on,” he said, “but I wasn’t interested in doing that. It was just a situation where we didn’t fit.”

Enter Washington. Under second-year head coach Chris Petersen and defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski, the Huskies had no qualms about Burr-Kirven’s size, speed or anything else. They saw a young player of considerable talent, not to mention desire, commitment and heart. In other words, the kind of player who excelled under Petersen in his previous tenure at Boise State University, and then at Washington.

As Kwiatkowski explained, “we just looked at the way he played football. (All) the plays he made and how hard he played. … All the stuff we evaluated him on, we loved about him.”

So the Huskies kept pushing hard, and Burr-Kirven found himself increasingly drawn to Petersen and his program.

“It really started with (Coach) Pete,” Burr-Kirven said. “Washington really wasn’t a place I was looking at until he came (in December of 2013, Burr-Kirven’s junior year of high school). But once I met him, it just kind of clicked. He was preaching the same kind of values I’d gotten from my high school team.

“My parents loved everything about the program,” he said. “They loved Seattle, and it just felt like home pretty quickly. It felt like the right fit.”

As for the “tweener” label, Burr-Kirven has pretty much dispelled that notion, at least as it applies to him. As a true freshman in 2015, he played in every game except the Heart of Dallas Bowl, which he missed with an injury. A backup linebacker, he saw considerable action on special teams, and after the season he received the team’s Most Outstanding Special Teams Player award.

Over the last two seasons, Burr-Kirven has appeared in every UW game, including eight starts in 2017 when he was named to the All-Pacific-12 Conference second team. As a junior he was the team’s top tackler, with 84 tackles in 13 games (an average of 6.5 a game) to go with a sack, an interception and two recovered fumbles.

“Ben’s in the middle of the defense, and he’s a smart guy,” Kwiatkowski said. “He’s getting guys lined up (properly). And the way he flies sideline to sideline … the energy he plays with, the passion he plays with, and then how productive he is, that’s what you want in a football player.”

As he enters his senior season, Burr-Kirven would like to see the Huskies address some unfinished business. The team reached the College Football Playoff in his sophomore year, but lost to Alabama in the semifinals. Last season, Washington failed to repeat as Pac-12 champion, and then lost to Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl.

“We’ve had success here,” he said, “but every year we kind of get stuck and can’t get over the hump to win that big game. You definitely want to leave a legacy here and go out the right way, so I think everyone in our senior class and really everyone on our whole team wants to go out this season and play up to the ability we know we have.”

Burr-Kirven calls his years at Washington “a great experience,” and he gives much of the credit to Petersen, whom he calls “the best coach I’ve ever been around.”

“I think the biggest thing with (Coach) Pete,” Burr-Kirven said, “is that he’s exactly who he says he is. There’s no hidden monster behind him. He’s a real man of integrity, and I think that’s what draws so many good guys up here to play for him. He really is an honest, truthful man. He’s demanding and he’s tough, but he also loves you and he shows it.

“There are many different ways to coach, but what he’s doing works. That man has won so many games in his career, both here and at Boise, and it’s just good to see someone who’s so natural and real with us. It’s easy for a head coach to be kind of a removed, overarching power, but he’s really there (for his team). He’s somebody you can talk to. If you have any questions, whether it’s on the football field or personal or anything like that, he’s really there and he really cares about you as a person outside of football.”

Burr-Kirven will leave Washington with a degree in cinema and media studies, which he hopes will lead to a future career in Hollywood because, he said, “film is where my passion lies.” But first there is the matter of football, beginning with the 2018 UW season and then continuing, he hopes, in the National Football League.

But however the coming years play out, Burr-Kirven expects his time at Washington to serve him well.

“I think the biggest thing this program does is teach you how to live your life (beyond) football,” he said. “Our coaching staff does a real good job of preparing us for the real world. … (Washington) is definitely a place that’s going to get you ready for not only what you’re going to do here, but what comes after.”