Late last summer, former Colorado forward Evan Battey met coach Tad Boyle for lunch.
Getting together wasn’t out of the ordinary. Battey was a coach on the floor by the time his CU basketball career ended, and Boyle has remained a confidant in the years since. This time, though, Boyle delivered a few blunt real-world questions.
“In our conversation he was asking me how many years (playing) I had left,” Battey said. “I said one. Potentially one. But during that time, I was just thinking of how long do I plan to play overseas? Obviously my end goal is to coach, and be the head coach at CU. It was honestly easy, the decision.
“When you’re making the decision, in the moment, it was hard. OK, I’m not going to play anymore, I’m going to have to shift my focus. But last summer, when we were talking about it, it sounded like a good idea.”
That decision has brought Battey back to CU, as he has joined Boyle’s staff as an assistant coach/quality control analyst after two seasons playing overseas.
Battey has long stated he views Boyle’s job as a future dream job, and the groundwork for that journey to start at CU was established years ago.
At Pac-12 men’s basketball media day in the fall of 2021, ahead of Battey’s final season and months after he played a key role in a season that ended in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Boyle revealed that he contemplated keeping a staff position vacant for a year in order to bring Battey on board, if the 6-foot-8 forward didn’t opt to pursue a professional playing career.
Battey did decide to keep playing, spending one season in Bulgaria and this past year in Switzerland. That open staff position two years ago went to Zach Ruebesam, and thanks to the NCAA approving expanded coaching staffs last year, Battey has joined the mix as well.
Battey undoubtedly will bring a unique perspective to his new role. He was teammates with five different NBA draft picks (George King, Tyler Bey, Jabari Walker, Tristan da Silva and KJ Simpson). And in his four active seasons at CU the Buffs essentially reached the postseason every year, earning NIT bids in 2019 and 2022 alongside the 2021 NCAA Tournament appearance and a 2020 NCAA berth that was denied when the tournament was canceled at the start of the COVID pandemic.
Battey also endured a wealth of adversity even before he played the first of his 133 games in a Buffs uniform – the fourth-most in program history – first getting forced into a redshirt season as a true freshman due to an academic technicality and then suffering a stroke that winter that put his playing career on hold.
“I’m just excited to be around the student-athletes, just trying to make them have the best experience they can possibly have,” Battey said. “Which entails winning games. Which entails being a team, spending time as a team. My teams were not perfect when I was at CU, but I think I can help improve the chemistry, improve the culture.”
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Battey certainly had more left in the tank as a player. With the Lugano Tigers last year in Switzerland, Battey averaged 19.1 points and 8.0 rebounds with a 51.5 field goal percentage. He still will get an opportunity to represent the Buffs on the floor, as Battey’s new job doesn’t change his status for the alumni squad Team Colorado, which begins a short training camp in Boulder next week ahead of the $1 million winner-take-all The Basketball Tournament.
It wasn’t an easy decision. Yet as Boyle goes into his 15th season at CU, Battey was more than ready to hang up his game shoes in order to begin a coaching journey he hopes one day will end in Boyle’s shoes.
“My numbers were great (in Switzerland), and that was the hardest part — declining some offers that were potentially on the table,” Battey said. “That was the hardest part, knowing that I’d played so well that offers were going to come, but still sticking true to my decision.”
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