Tom Burton grew up in Brighton, New York, and graduated from Brighton High School and Hamilton College. His coaching career began in 1989 when he took over as the head coach of the Clinton Swim Club in Clinton, New York, and as an assistant at Hamilton.

Burton was hired as the head swimming and diving coach at Lake Forest College in 1993. Over the next six years, his teams combined to capture seven Midwest Conference titles and post five runner-up finishes at the league championship meet. Members of the program won 143 individual and relay events at the MWC Championships while the rest of the conference combined for just 97. He swept the MWC Men’s and Women’s Coach of the Year awards three times and his athletes earned six MWC Swimmer of the Year honors while breaking school records 44 times and conference records 36 times. Under Burton’s direction the Foresters posted 26 All-American performances, including an individual first-place finish at the national meet, and placed among the top 20 men’s or women’s teams in the country three times. They were successful in the classroom as well, combining for 19 Academic All-MWC awards, four College Swimming Coaches Association Scholar All-America honors, an Academic All-American® distinction, and a NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship.

Burton also spent time at Lake Forest as an assistant men’s soccer coach, head men’s and women’s cross country coach, work study supervisor, and director of summer conferences.

After six years at the College, Burton left to be closer to family in the Northeast. He also took over the swimming and diving program at Colby College in Maine, where he continued to be an extremely successful head coach while he and his wife Lisa raised their son Tanner and daughter Mackenzie. In addition to coaching, Burton became an associate athletic director at Colby and served on his local school board.