In 54 years on this Earth, Dan Burt has enjoyed few days better than Monday.

For starters, Duquesne announced it extended Burt’s contract to coach women’s basketball four years through the 2027-28 season.

Meanwhile, he was invited by Saint Vincent College to attend Pittsburgh Steelers training camp where he and his son watched practice and listened to a speech from Pro Football Hall of Famer Donnie Shell. He also found time to take his son go-karting and was so busy, he almost missed another big event.

“Today’s my birthday,” he said. “I just realized that.”

So what can he do for an encore Tuesday?

“Washington County Fair,” he said.

First of all, Burt will stop to count his blessings and review the notes he picked up from the Steelers and plugged into his phone about how to run a more efficient practice.

“It’s such a different game, and the breakdowns are different,” he said. “But you can pick up little things where you go, ‘OK, we can start our practices with a few more stations to deal with individual type of developmental skills.’ Hopefully, we’ll incorporate a few things.”

More to the immediate point, the contract extension gives Burt the opportunity to finish his career at Duquesne.

“When I took the position as the head coach 12 years ago, at the press conference I said this would be my last coaching job,” said Burt, who was a Duquesne assistant for six seasons before that. “I’ve been committed to that since Day 1. I’m really excited to be here for another four years, hopefully, four more years beyond that.

“In a time of uncertainty in college athletics, especially in recruiting, when you have someone who is from Pittsburgh (he’s a Trinity High School graduate), has been at a local school for 18 years, people know you’re committed to your university.

“Any time you can tell your local kids or your international players, ‘Hey, look, I’ve been here for 12 years, I’ve been with the program for 18 years and I have a new four-year contract,’ there are very few coaches in America who can say that.”

Burt is grateful to find stability in a profession that often does not offer it.

“When you are a male coaching a women’s sport, you don’t know if you’re ever going to get that opportunity at the highest level,” he said. “When I was an assistant for 15 years, my goal was always just to become a head coach at a good Division III school, if I could do that.”

Burt took advantage of his chance and became the Duquesne program’s winningest coach of all-time with a 209-132 (.613) record, 107-66 (.618) in the Atlantic 10. Since he took the job, the 209 victories rank third by any A-10 school, behind Fordham (215) and Dayton (210). The 107 conference victories are seventh all-time in league history. The 2023-24 season marked Burt’s seventh with at least 20 victories (21), and 13 in the conference tied the program record.

While chasing Fordham and Dayton, Burt said Duquesne has kept up with those rivals in terms of commitment.

“The resourcing at those schools is at a very, very high level,” he said. “We’ve been able to match them.”

Burt was hired in 2013 to replace Suzie McConnell-Serio, who had been named head coach at Pitt. He initially planned to follow McConnell-Serio to Pitt as her recruiting coordinator, but a desire to run his own program led him to seek and win the Duquesne job.

“I was really fortunate,” he said, “that when I left to take (the Pitt job), the administration with Greg Amodio, our athletic director at the time, and our president, Charles Daugherty, believed in me.”

Burt said he plans to pay back his current Duquesne employers, athletic director Dave Harper and President Ken Gormley.

“I’m never going to be Dean Smith, but I’ve always wanted to be able to be at one place where I can really impact people and people’s lives and a program,” he said. “I feel like we’ve been able to do that.

”As long as they’ll allow me to, I plan on staying. I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

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