Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 29, 1993                   TAG: 9312290184
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE                                LENGTH: Medium

UVA'S BURNS MAKES GRADE ON FIELD, TOO

"In high school, I wanted to be known as a [tough] linebacker, and if people knew about school, so be it," said Burns, who graduated first in his class at Bishop McNamara in Forestville, Md.

Burns carried a 4.3 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale, thanks to some honors courses, but was in such demand as a football prospect that he canceled visits to Penn State, Ohio State and UCLA before picking Virginia over Michigan.

Burns doesn't know if some of those schools simply were trying to improve their team GPA, "but a lot of schools tried to dissuade me from taking engineering. I can say it's never been like that here."

Burns, who majors in nuclear engineering, entered the fall semester with a 3.92 GPA. All that separated him from perfection was an A-minus in one lab and a B-plus in another.

He thought he received the B-plus unfairly and considered appealing, "but that would have sounded like sour grapes," Burns said.

Despite such a glaring flaw in his transcript, Burns was selected first-team Academic All-American for the second year in a row and received the Vincent Draddy Award from the National Football Foundation as the nation's premier scholar-athlete.

"That was the most incredible thing," said Burns, chosen from among 18 finalists in ceremonies at the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. "I sat next to [General] Norman Schwarzkopf and [former Supreme Court justice] Byron White."

Burns received a $25,000 scholarship and has earned approximately $130,000 in grants since coming to Virginia.

Oh, and he ranked third among the Cavaliers in tackles this year with 90.

Maybe Burns hasn't had the kind of football career that his recruitment might have suggested, but there have been extenuating circumstances.

As a "true" freshman, he started against Wake Forest in 1991, but suffered a pinched nerve in one of his shoulders and was through for the season after being on the field for 58 plays.

The NCAA routinely grants hardship appeals to players injured before they have played in one-quarter of a team's games, but there is a stipulation that the injury must have occurred in the first half of the season. Burns was injured in the seventh game.

"I really hope I can get an extra year," said Burns, who is in the fourth year of a five-year master's degree program. "The chances are not 100 percent, maybe not even 50-50. As the rule is written, I am not eligible, but, as in federal and state law, you have to ask the question: Why was the rule written."

If Burns does not win his appeal, he will complete work on his thesis, which is on boron neutron capture therapy; that is, the non-surgical radiative treatment of brain tumors.

Burns doesn't plan a career in medicine, "but, by doing this, I'm hedging my bets," he said.

"The big thing I want to work with is fusion power, which is the breaking apart of atoms for power. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big family person. I'm not for contaminating the world [with nuclear energy]. I'm not some back-room scientist."

Burns hopes in another year that his efforts will be rewarded with a Rhodes scholarship.

"Unless I fall flat on my face in the interview, that's something I really want to do," he said.

Although he started at least one game during his freshman and sophomore years, Burns did not become a regular on the UVa football team until the last four games of the 1992 season. He enters the Carquest Bowl with 200 tackles, including 16 for losses, in his career.

"When I got here [before the 1991 season], he was not a major-college linebacker," said Rick Lantz, the Cavaliers' defensive coordinator. "He forced himself to become a better football player and an instantaneous decision-maker. I'd very much like to have him back."

Burns said it was important for him to play in 1990, but instead he became one in a series of UVa freshmen who played sparingly when they could have been redshirted.

"It's like my father told me at the time, `When are you more valuable? As an 18-year-old freshman or a 22-year-old senior?' " Burns said. "But I didn't know any better."

Burns has his priorities in order and, if he can't return for a fifth year of football, his time probably won't be wasted.

"I don't feel that my academic [accomplishments] have overshadowed my athletics," he said, "but I guess there could be worse things to be known for."