©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

New leadership for CHA basketball, soccer teams
by TOM UTESCHER

CHA athletic director Mark Burke (left) congratulates Mark Weinmann on his appointment as the Blue Devils’ new soccer coach. Burke himself is taking over the reins of the school’s varsity basketball program.

In appointing new coaches for its varsity basketball and soccer teams, Chestnut Hill Academy appears to have hit the “Mark.” Wynnewood resident Mark Weinmann, 36, is taking over the helm of the soccer program, while CHA athletic director Mark Burke, a 1986 graduate of the school, is taking on the additional task of coaching the basketball squad.

Weinmann, a Philadelphia native like Burke, attended St. Joseph’s Prep and went on to play Division I soccer at Boston College, where he earned a degree in English. After spending some time in Germany, he worked for Anheuser Busch in St. Louis before returning to the Philadelphia area.

More recently, he was an assistant soccer coach at Lower Merion High School, and coached several travel teams for Arsenal, the Lower Merion soccer club. The Under-15 Arsenal squad he piloted went through to the state finals on two occasions. He is currently the Sports Director of Soccer in Pennsylvania for the Special Olympics program.

At the end of last winter, he contacted Chestnut Hill Academy on behalf of one of his club players, a talented striker from Sierra Leone who is universally known as “A.B.”

The youngster will be entering the ninth grade at CHA this fall, and Weinmann recalls, “I was on the phone talking to Mark Burke about him, and then I called Mark back an hour later and said, ‘You know what, I’m interested in your coaching position, too.’ “

He knew of CHA’s reputation in the sport, as well as its purpose-built soccer field. The Blue Devils last won the Inter-Ac League in 2000, and have finished in the top half of the league just about every year since, finishing second in 2004 and 2005.

Officially hired in April, Weinmann quickly got some of Chestnut Hill’s players involved in a spring soccer league in Newtown Square and has them on soccer-specific conditioning and weight-lifting regimens this summer.

“I was a little surprised that they didn’t train all year round,” he says. “I know a lot of the guys play multiple sports, and I like to see well-rounded kids, but for the ones who get to be sophomores and juniors and decide they want to play college soccer at a high level, you want to have a structure in place to support them.”

At first, he says, “It’ll be back to basics, and getting them used to my way of doing things. I think I’m a player’s coach and a pretty good motivator and I like to be creative with practices and training to keep it fun for the kids. A lot of interest and excitement has been generated by the World Cup this year [Weinmann attended some of the games in Germany], and I think it’s a great time to be coaching soccer.”

Meanwhile, Mark Burke faces a more difficult task in turning the Blue Devils into title contenders in basketball. League rivals have been recruiting serious talent for many years now, and while Chestnut Hill could occasionally give some of the top teams a scare, the Devils usually found themselves in a struggle with Haverford School to avoid a last-place finish in the Inter-Ac.

Like Weinmann in soccer, Burke wanted to see more members of the hoop squad engaged in the sport during the off-season. He has his charges playing in several summer leagues where, he reported recently, they won 11 of their first 12 games.

“You’ve got to develop the talent that’s within the school first,” Burke observed. “There are some very talented kids here right now, as people will see. Keeping a ball in their hands this summer will hopefully be a first step in getting the program running in the right direction.”

A four-year varsity basketball player and a Markward Award winner at Chestnut Hill, Burke went on to play college ball at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA, departing with a degree in sociology and later earning a Masters degree in Education and Sports Administration at Millersville (PA) University.

He coached basketball in high school, camp, and summer league settings, and he was an assistant coach at Millersville for seven years, leaving after the 2003-2004 season to become athletic director at CHA.

Chestnut Hill hopes to attract talented players in the future by raising the profile of its basketball program, but at present, Burke won’t have the towering frontcourt players available to some of his league rivals.

“We’ve got to open up the floor; we’ve got to run and get open shots,” he says. “People are going to see a totally different style of basketball here. We’re going to move up and down the court rather quickly; our goal is to get a shot off within 12 seconds. We already have a name for it: organized chaos.”

CHA began renovating its indoor athletic facilities last summer. Varsity basketball games will still be played in the old Kingsley Gymnasium for the 2006-2007 season, although a new multipurpose Physical Education gym will be open next door. A new field house is next on the list, and the Blue Devils feel that with new coaches in place and with modern facilities in the offing, the school’s sports program is on the upswing.