New Arizona assistant coach might have secret sauce to sustaining success | Michael Lev

That was my assumption when Becky Burke announced his hiring in mid-March. I figured Starkey was the latest coach who had grown tired of developing players only to lose them to deeper-pocketed programs.

Turns out that wasn’t the case. In fact, Starkey was renowned for his ability to retain players — one of many reasons Burke pursued him.

He might turn out to be one of her best recruits.

If he can help in any way in the critical area of retention, Starkey will help Burke build something that can be sustained.

“Roster retention and management is the newest, hardest, most important thing that any coach has to do now,” said Starkey, who’s been in the business for almost 30 years. “Where you used to be able to focus more on basketball, now you're like, ‘All right, who am I going to be able to coach?’

“Every season is a one-year deal, and you're hoping for the best to be able to keep (the team together). There's times that you can bring some players back, but there's times you're coaching a whole new team every single year. It makes it difficult to build in sequence like you used to, where you knew players were coming back and you knew what you were going to bring in to add to that. So you could really build a nice team over the course of two, three, four years.

“Now all that's just so up in the air. It's really challenging.”

Starkey achieved something remarkable entering his final two seasons at Kent State: The Golden Flashes didn’t lose a single player to the transfer portal.

It might have been good fortune, good timing or good team culture; probably a combination of the three. It wasn’t about money; no one got paid to stay.

If you’re thinking, “Well, maybe Kent State didn’t have players who were good enough to leave,” think again: The Golden Flashes won 21 games three years in a row entering last season.

“His expertise, his experience, his track record of keeping people at Kent State — that means they had a good experience,” Burke said.

She didn’t seek Starkey just because of that. There was much more to it.

Burke wanted someone with head-coaching experience to serve as her associate head coach. She wanted someone who shares her competitive mindset. She wanted someone who has similar goals.

Building a program that isn’t a revolving door just happens to one of them.

“It just speaks to me wanting to have really good people on staff that build relationships and know how to enhance the student-athlete experience,” said Burke, whose team opens the season Monday against Stanford in Las Vegas. “Good people that build good relationships with players.”

Making do, breaking through

Burke and Starkey have had similar experiences building small-school programs into winners — although, as Starkey noted with a chuckle, “She had a much quicker ascent than I did, that's for sure.”

Starkey, 55, got his first coaching job at Montreat College, an NAIA school in North Carolina where he had transferred to conclude his college playing career. He served as an assistant for the Montreat men’s team, making about $3,000 a year.

His salary was about the same when he became a volunteer assistant for the men’s basketball team and the women’s tennis coach at Lenoir-Rhyne. Starkey supplemented his income with other jobs, including substitute teaching, mostly at Hickory High School in Hickory, North Carolina. He filled in for a PE teacher one time. He also taught freshman honors economics for a semester.

“I just filled in wherever they needed me,” Starkey said. “Made do. We got by for a couple years.”

Starkey was married at the time, and his family was growing. He has four adult children and two grandchildren. The eldest of his kids, Drew Starkey, is an actor who played the role of Rafe Cameron on the Netflix teen drama “Outer Banks.”

Those early days tested Todd Starkey’s resolve. Was coaching something he really wanted to do? Was it something he could afford to do while raising a family?

“There were some times that were difficult,” Starkey said. “It would have been easier to get out of coaching and just try to find something full-time, especially with four kids.

“But it was something that I knew I loved, and I just kind of (pinned) my ears back and poured myself into it.”

Starkey’s first big break came at Lenoir-Rhyne, where he became the head coach of the women’s basketball team in 2005. Four years later, he was named the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association NCAA Division II Coach of the Year. He found joy and satisfaction in recruiting, mentoring young people and making the most out of having limited time and a limited budget.

Starkey spent nine seasons at Lenoir-Rhyne, compiling a 165-95 record and guiding the Bears to four appearances in the NCAA Division II tournament. He worked for two seasons as an assistant at Indiana before becoming the head coach at Kent State for a decade.

The Golden Flashes won the MAC championship in 2024. They defeated Buffalo — whose head coach was Becky Burke.

Burke lost six in a row against Starkey before finally notching a win in 2025. She knew he knew ball. She didn’t know if he’d want to join her in Tucson.

Right time, right place

Starkey wasn’t actively looking to leave Kent State. When she first presented the idea to him, Burke expected Starkey to laugh it off.

He didn’t.

“It wasn't really anything that was on my radar,” Starkey said. “I was in a really good place there. I had a contract, was doing well. We had just come off of a MAC championship in ’24, an NCAA Tournament bid.

“But I had been there 10 years. The more and more I thought about it, maybe it's time in my career to get into a different situation.”

Burke’s pitch was simple: Come to the desert and help her build something special.

Starkey was intrigued. Arizona had a recent track record of success — and the potential and resources to do it again.

First, Starkey had to make sure his longtime top assistant at Kent State, Fran Recchia, would succeed him — which she did — and that “everybody on my staff there was going to be taken care of.”

“Everything fell into place,” Starkey said. “Then I just got more and more excited about this opportunity.”

It felt like the right time and the right fit. So Starkey made the move.

Besides the weather, the biggest adjustment has been putting himself back into an assistant coach’s mindset.

“The biggest difference between being an assistant and head coach is, as an assistant, you get to make suggestions,” Starkey said. “As a head coach, you make decisions all day long.

“It's back to suggestion mode now and trying to figure out, how can I be a support to her? How can I make Coach’s day easier? How can I keep things off her desk? How can I see her blind spots?”

Burke is entering her second season at Arizona. She overhauled the roster for the second year in a row. It’s not something she wants to do annually.

One of the three players who stayed, senior guard Sumayah Sugapong, lauded Starkey’s vibe and energy.

“It’s just very uplifting,” she said.

Burke has said many times that she isn’t the easiest coach to play for; she’s stern and demanding.

“I'm a very passionate coach, too,” Starkey said. “I hate to lose as well. But that's my job, to kind of be a counterbalance. I hope I'm able to provide that to her and consistently give her what she needs.”

A less secure coach than Burke might not have made a move like this, hiring someone whose résumé rivals hers. But more than anything, Burke wants to win — now and for years to come.