John Burke was once one of Georgetown's most storied student-athletes, but not as a member of the 1937-38 Hoyas.

Burke arrived at Georgetown on a basketball scholarship in 1936. A year on the freshman team and his brief appearance in his sophomore season soon gave way to the golf team, where he became a national name in the sport. Growing up in a working class family amidst the wealth of Newport, RI, Burke picked up the sport as a a caddy at the Newport Country Club. A scratch golfer in his early teens, Burke won the Rhode Island junior amateur tournament at age 15, winning four titles in five years (a fifth title was lost when Burke missed the tee time for the event). By 1938 he had swept the state's junior, amateur and open titles, the first of only four that has ever done so.

In Burke's three varsity seasons from 1937 to 1940, Georgetown was a challenger for Eastern intercollegiate honors, and finished as high as fifth nationally. Burke won individual honors at the 1938 National Intercollegiate Tournament at Oakmont Country Club, joining Georgetown alumnus Maurice McCarthy (C'30) as the only golfers from the Northeast to date to have won the title that were not formerly enrolled at an Ivy League institution. Later that summer, Burke finished in the semifinals of the Western Amateur, and completed his college career with the 1940 Metropolitan Amateur Championship.

Burke played one game on the basketball varsity. Following his graduation in 1940, Burke joined the management training program with the Anaconda Copper Mining Company; ironically, the requirements of the job prevented Burke from accepting an invitation to compete at the 1941 Masters. Later that fall, he was drafted and sent to Officer Candidate School for the U.S. Army, and was sent overseas for the upcoming invasion of North Africa.

In May 1943, just two weeks before the conclusion of the Tunisia Campaign, John Burke was killed by friendly fire in a skirmish with Axis forces. A caddy scholarship program was created by the Rhode Island Golf Association in his honor; since its inception in 1946, it has provided support to over 700 students pursuing a college education.

John Burke was posthumously inducted into the Georgetown Athletic Hall of Fame at its creation in 1953.