Frank was inducted into the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame in 2005, and has been covering local basketball since the 1970s. Burlison was the long-time basketball prep writer for the Long Beach Press-Telegram newspaper and also worked for the Orange County Register. He left about ten years ago to start his own current basketball recruiting service and write prep articles for BurlisonOnBasketball.com. In 1978, he was appointed as an original member of the McDonald’s All-American Basketball Selection Committee.

The year previous, he established the “Best in the West” section for the Press-Telegram – the rankings and profiles of the top prospects in the region’s senior class. He became a July summer fixture at the Las Vegas High School and then club tournaments each year starting in the late 1970s and has been doing so for over 40 years. He has been attending NCAA Final Fours for over 30 years and is considered an expert on all levels of basketball. In 1992, ‘Sports Illustrated’ listed him as one of the country’s “10 most influential members of the media” in college basketball.