Colorado associate head coach Mike Rohn named one of the nation’s most impactful coaches
BOULDER, Colo. (BVM) – Tad Boyle has been the head basketball coach of the Colorado Buffaloes since 2010. He has a 254-155 record, five NCAA tournament berths and eight 20-plus win seasons. He has helped produce NBA talent such as Alec Burks, Spencer Dinwiddie and Derrick White, who is currently playing in the NBA Finals with the Celtics. To top it all off, Boyle was named head coach for the USA basketball FIBA U18 team.
Undoubtedly Boyle has brought great success to the University of Colorado basketball program and he has always done it his way. But he has seemingly had support around him helping contribute to that success, and that is associate head coach Mike Rohn.
Boyle and Rohn crossed paths a couple of times at the beginning of their coaching careers before they both became assistant coaches at Wichita State from 2000 to 2006. They went their separate ways before reuniting in Boulder in 2010. Now 12 years later, the two still remain together building this program and a culture.
Rohn has been a huge part of what Boyle has built in Boulder, and it’s a big reason why he has been there for the past 12 years.
“The opportunity to work with Coach Boyle, he is such a good mentor,” Rohn said. “I align a lot with him in terms of philosophy and how to run a program so that makes it much easier to come to work every day knowing you’re working for a great guy who believes in you and gives you the opportunity to coach.”
The opportunity that Rohn has been given has been noticed as he was recently named one of the top 50 most impactful coaches in Division I basketball.
“That award was probably a little bit more [about] longevity when it’s all said and done,” Rohn said humbly. “But no, anytime you get a little bit of recognition as an assistant coach it can certainly help you a little bit, that’s for sure.”
So how exactly does a coach be impactful?
Rohn made it a point that when someone comes here to play basketball, they have a lot of skill. The coaching staff’s job is to guide them and make sure they put in the hard work to really help the player reach their individual goals as well as help the team play to its highest level.
He mainly focused on White in particular.
“He (White) had already put himself in a position to be a pretty elite player,” Rohn said of White playing in the NBA Finals. “It makes you feel real good, and you want to have some ownership for their journey. But we’ve been fortunate to have some really hard workers that have put themselves in that position.”
It was also emphasized that off the court matters just as much, if not more, than anything that can be done on the court.
“[Basketball] is never gonna be for the rest of your life. And so developing yourself while you’re at the University of Colorado, making relationships and maximizing all the resources that we have here,” Rohn said. “They get that opportunity to get a degree from here, build relationships, and those things, they’ll take those with them forever.”
After 12 years, Rohn is going to continue coaching alongside Boyle and they will be keeping the same mindset that they have every year.
“Our expectations every year that we are here are always very, very high,” Rohn said. “We always expect to be competing for conference championships and competing at the top of the Pac-12 conference.”
With the season about five months away, we will see exactly what Boyle and Rohn will accomplish in the 2022 campaign.
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