During his career, Dave Burgess steadily ascended JCCC's cross country and track programs to a level of unprecedented achievement. He coached student-athletes to 331 All-American honors, 30 individual NJCAA championships. six national record holders and two Olympic Festival gold medalists. Ten of his athletes qualified to compete in the 1992 or 1996 USA Olympic Trials.  In addition to producing national caliber individuals, Burgess was able to mold nationally competitive teams. Burgess' squads won 33 of the 40 possible East Jayhawk Conference titles. In 1996-97, Burgess became the first coach to capture a conference triple crown and he did it again the following year.  In addition, JCCC won 10 region titles and 46 teams finished among the top 10 nationally, 15 of those teams were among the top-five. In 1993, Burgess experienced the ultimate for a coach, winning a national championship. JCCC's five-member marathon team proved the best in the country and gave Burgess and the school its first national sports title. Burgess also fielded two teams that were honored as academic national champions.   

Burgess also was extremely active on both the regional, national and international levels of his sport. Most notably, he was chosen by the USOC and USATF as an assistant coach for the 1992 World Junior Championships in Seoul, Korea, and the 1993 Junior Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada. He was also selected as an assistant coach at the 1993 Deaf Olympics in Sofia, Bulgaria, where JCCC standout Wendell Gaskin set world records in the 100-meter, 200-meter and 400-meter dashes.  Burgess took a national role in promoting and establishing the hammer and pole vault as events for women. The NJCAA was the first intercollegiate body to include the women's hammer as an official event.    Three times he was awarded the NJCAA Division I National Coach of the Year, and six times selected the Kansas College and University Coach of the Year. 

In 1998, Burgess became the 27th head coach to earn induction into the NJCAA men's and women's Cross Country and men's and women's Track and Field Hall of Fame. Two years later, his alma mater McPherson College, inducted him into its Athletic Hall of Fame.