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With the news becoming official on Saturday morning that Ed Cooley hired his long-time friend Jeff Battle to fill the open assistant position, here's bio blast for Friar fans to get to know their new assistant coach.
Coaching Pedigree
Battle began his coaching career at his alma mater Marshall in 1986 as a graduate assistant. He then moved on to Delaware State for one season as a graduate assistant before taking a high school head coaching position nearby. After 2 seasons at Caesar Rodney high school a full-time assistant position opened at Delaware State. After 3 seasons as an assistant at Delaware State he was offered a job by Skip Prosser at Loyola in Maryland. That one season at Loyola with Prosser saw a remarkable turnaround from 2-25 the year before they got there to 17-13 and the school's first NCAA Tournament berth. From there Prosser took the head coaching position at Xavier and brought Battle with him. They spent 7 seasons at Xavier before again moving together to Wake Forest. Battle then became the associate head coach at Wake Forest, a position he would hold for 13 seasons under 3 different coaches. Battle spent this past year out of coaching after he was not retained by Danny Manning when Manning was hired as the head coach of Wake Forest in April 2014.
Player Development
Battle has a number of well-known basketball names on his resume. Some of the notable ones are Chris Paul, Josh Howard, Jeff Teague and James Posey. He also coached David West at Xavier but his area of expertise for player development is with guards.
Personal Life
Battle was described to me by a source familiar with him from his time at Wake Forest as "a quality person. Salt of the earth...[you] won’t find a better person." Battle met his wife Joyce while they were both assistant coaches at Delaware State. They have one son, Jordan. Joyce passed away in 2008 following an 8-year battle with lung cancer. You can read a fantasticly well-done story by Bret Strelow of the Fayetteville Observer from 2012 for more on that sad story.
Overview
Cooley finally got his old friend to join his staff after attempting to lure Battle away from Wake Forest in 2011 after Cooley got hired at Providence. Battle opted to stay at Wake to keep his son's continuity of schooling intact for the final 2 years of high school. With Jordan Battle now finishing his junior year at East Carolina University the timing was right for Jeff to make the move. Replacing Bob Simon, who took the associate head coach position under Avery Johnson at Alabama in April, is not going to be an easy task but Battle has the experience, resume and character to do it.