WARR ACRES – Brandon Jackson was a senior at Putnam City when legendary Pirate basketball coach A.D. Burtschi got onto him in practice.

Another player had a made a mistake and Jackson corrected him before Burtschi got to him.

“Coach Burtschi told me to be quiet,” Jackson recalled.

Jackson remembered the Hall of Fame coach told him.” ‘One day, you’ll be a coach so don’t worry about it. Actually, you’ll be a 10-times better coach than you are a basketball player.’ “

Burtschi’s prediction has stuck with Jackson as he gets his opportunity to revive the storied Putnam City basketball program as its new head coach 16 years later.

‘GREAT BASKETBALL IQ’ PLAYER TURNED COACH

Jackson has seen the Pirate tradition first hand. A Big All-City and All-Stater as a senior in 2008, he was a sophomore on Putnam City’s 2006 6A state title team. In three years at PC, Jackson helped the Pirates to an 80-11 record, going 25-2 as a senior.

He averaged 7.2 points, 2.2 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.1 steals per game in his high school career.

“He has a big heart and a great basketball IQ,” Burtschi said in 2008 when Jackson signed with Tulsa.

Jackson left the Golden Hurricane midway through his freshman year and later transferred to NAIA St. Gregory’s University. From 2010-2012, Jackson averaged 7.9 points, 4.1 rebounds and five assists a game for the Cavaliers.

He started his coaching career at Mount Saint Mary as an assistant in 2013 and was elevated to head coach in 2017, coaching both the boys and girls teams for the Rockets for a time.

Even Jackson’s coaching stint at the Catholic school has some symmetry with Burtschi, who coached Mount Saint Mary for seven years before his 32-year run at Putnam City.

Most recently, Jackson coached for two years at Piedmont where he helped turn the program around from six wins the two seasons prior to 34 wins in his two seasons at the helm.

Under Jackson, the Wildcats made their 6A debut this past season, finishing 17-9, falling in the regional playoffs.

Jackson has an overall career coaching record of 131-51. He led two of his Rocket teams to state tournament appearances.

IT ALL CAME BACK TO PUTNAM CITY

Coaching at Putnam City was always in the back of Jackson’s mind.

“Putnam City has always been a goal to coach at some point in my career,” Jackson said. “Putnam City is the reason I wanted to become a coach and the coach I had there, Coach Burtschi, really made me want to do what I’m doing today.”

After Jackson was named the Mount Saint Mary head coach, his first call was to Burtschi.

Since Burtschi died in 2019, Jackson can’t call him today but he knows what his former coach would say.

“I think he’d be very excited. I think he’d give me a lot of advice, and the first advice he’d give me is to be myself and don’t try to be him or anyone else, but know that it’s my program and I need to run it the way I see fit and not how I would think he’s doing it,” Jackson said. “Just being myself and knowing, the tradition we have there, and to always do the right things.”

TOUGH TIMES AT ORIGINAL

Similar to when he took the Piedmont job, Jackson faces a tough task, rebuilding a program with five state championships over its history but a 37-63 record over the past five seasons. The Pirates’ last winning season was 2018-2019 when Daniel Cunningham led Putnam City to a 15-12 record and a state tournament appearance.

Under Garland Parks, the Pirates finished 9-16 last season. Putnam City showed signs of brilliance, beating a talented Putnam City North team in the Putnam City Invitational and winning the consolation trophy at Moore’s John Nobles Invitational, beating a Class 4A ranked Ada squad.

However, the Pirates made a quick exit in regional play, going 0-2.

TRANSLATING TRADITION TO A NEW GENERATION

While Putnam City’s boys basketball tradition is well known to many, Jackson is tasked with connecting that tradition to today’s players.

“I think the biggest key is getting former players to come back for practice, come back for games, speak with the team and be around the team,” Jackson said. “I think we lost that at Putnam City for a few years where none of the former players were coming back and supporting, encouraging or mentoring these young players.”

When Jackson played under Burtschi, Pirate alums playing college basketball came back during the holidays to scrimmage the high schoolers.

“It was a serious scrimmage. It wasn’t, ‘ we were just joking around,’ ” Jackson recalled. “You know, loser still ran. The high school team was playing like it was a real game, subbing and how it was playing defense and the college players, they did the same thing.”

The connection with the alumni meant something to Jackson as a player.

“A lot of my teammates when I was in high school either had older brothers that were part of the group coming back to play against us or, we were just going to Putnam City games. So, we were familiar with the guys. Just seeing them come back and just pour energy and knowledge into us, giving us advice about college, about life and about Coach Burtschi.”

Another way Jackson plans to emphasize tradition is to try to bring back the championship banners and retired jerseys from years past. The banners still hang in the Pirates’ practice gym (which was their main gym during Jackson’s playing days). Since the original gym was renovated in 2019, it once again became the main facility but the banners were never moved over.

RAISING THE BAR

Jackson wants the tradition to help bring up the expectations of the program.

‘Overall, we’re going to be the hardest working team in the state of Oklahoma,” Jackson said. “We had motto that Coach Burtschi said to us a lot. It was, ‘all out, all the time’ and that’s what we’re going to bring back. we’re going to go all out, all the time.”

Jackson wants his new squad’s defense to take center stage.

“Our best offense is gonna be our defense. We’re gonna score a lot of points on offense because of our defense, getting stops and being able to run and transition, offensively,” Jackson said. “We’re going to get up and down the floor, we’re going to put pressure on the defense by trying to score early and transition.”

Jackson gave his first impressions of his new players, highlighting guard Kelton Locke, who’ll be a senior. Locke missed a lot of his junior year due to injury.

“(He’s a) really great leader, really good young man and hard worker. I’m very excited to work with him.”

Jackson also mentioned JaColby Williams, another future senior, who can “really shoot the ball.” Williams finished second in scoring as a junior.

Finally, Jackson was impressed with Gabe Osborne, who saw increased playing time late in his freshman season.

“You’re not going to see an athlete like this kid, 6’1″, jump out to gym, high motor,” Jackson said. “He’s a nice kid. I mean, everyone loves playing with him. He’s going to have a breakout year.”

MORE THAN CHAMPIONSHIPS

When Jackson played, the goal was championships, an expectation wants to bring back, but not at the expense of other important things.

“I’m not trying to be Coach Burtschi when it comes to wins or championships. If that happens, great and I’ll take it!” Jackson said. “I’m trying to be and have been striving to be Coach Burtschi in the way he impacted and changed young men lives, in the game of basketball but most importantly in life. I don’t know the number of men’s lives he helped and changed through the game of basketball but that’s what I’m striving for.”