Dan Burk won't waste any time getting acquainted with the athletes in the Bay City school district.

Burk will go to work Tuesday less than 24 hours after being named the athletic director and head football coach at Monday night's meeting of the Bay City school district board of trustees.

Burk was approved by a unanimous 6-0 vote of the trustees and will receive a two-year contract with a salary in the $80,000 to $90,000 range.

"We're here to build the program and bring the tradition back," Burk said. "We're going to go to work and do what it takes to get it done. Us as coaches are going to be there to make sure they have every opportunity to win."

Burk has been a head coach for 11 seasons, including two at Yoakum. Burk has spent the last two seasons as the strength and conditioning coach and coaching linebackers at East Texas Baptist University.

"We're looking for someone to come in and build all programs from seventh-grade athletics all the way to 12th," said Keith Brown, superintendent of the Bay City school district. "Coach Burk has the experience to do that. He's proven it at other stops. We're going to get Blackcats football back to where it needs to be."

Burk will replace Robert Blackmon, who resigned in December after four seasons as head coach.

Bay City went 10-29 during Blackmon's tenure and failed to make the playoffs. The Blackcats had a 3-7 record last season and went 1-5 in District 23-4A. Five of their losses were by six points or less.

"We're going to take it one day at a time and one step at a time," Burk said. "We're going to start from scratch and get them in the weight room and try to build from there. Our offense and defense are really pretty multiple and adaptable to the kind of personnel we have anyway. Over the course of working with them and seeing what they got and kind of seeing what they do best, it will kind of evolve on its own."

Burk had a 9-13 record in his two seasons at Yoakum. After going 1-9 in 2007, the Bulldogs improved to 8-4 in 2008 and finished second to Cuero in District 28-3A. Yoakum defeated Poteet in the bi-district playoffs before losing to Giddings in the area round.

He coached at Caney Creek for a year after leaving Yoakum and went 1-9 before moving to East Texas Baptist.

Burk has also been a head coach at Ranger, Navasota, Wimberley and The Colony and has an overall record of 64-67. He was also the strength and conditioning coach at the University of Arizona from 1989 to 1991.

"This is an area of the state we really enjoyed," Burk said. "We can get back down near a lot of friends. The tradition of the past and we have a chance to come in and be a part of that and try to make it something special."