The Coaching Path was meant to be for Nate Tomlinson

This is the first of a multi-part series BuffsCountry will be doing on Nate Tomlinson, the Director of Player Development for the Colorado Buffaloes.
The Coaching Path was meant to be for Nate Tomlinson
The Coaching Path was meant to be for Nate Tomlinson /

Nate Tomlinson always knew he would end up in coaching. After a standout career at Colorado, capped off with a Pac-12 Tournament title, Tomlinson went back home to play professionally in Australia.

Although Tad Boyle only coached him for two seasons, he knew Tomlinson would eventually be a great coach. They each stayed in contact while Tomlinson was playing in Australia.

“We had a pretty good relationship,” Tomlinson said. "The day I left CU, we kept in constant communication. Obviously, I was wanting to know how things were going with the team and always watching them play games, as much as I could fit in with my schedule overseas. But every summer I'd come back here for a couple of weeks and hang out with the guys and work out. Obviously, sit down with Coach Boyle and have some communication.”

The 6-foot-3 point guard averaged 4.5 points and three assists during his five seasons in the National Basketball League.

Whenever Tomlinson would go back to Boulder during the off-season, Boyle would see if he was interested in coaching. But the desire for Tomlinson to keep playing on the court never wavered.

“I still had the love for the game and the passion to compete on the court,” Tomlinson said. “And I just wasn't ready to give that up yet. I knew coaching was always something I wanted to get into. But there's a lot of people I've spoken to, a lot of old players, they just said to play as long as you can and play as long as you have that desire. And still to this day, I still do have it and I want to get out on the court and play.”

When Jean Prioleau left the staff to take the head job at San Jose State, there was some shakeup amongst the staff. And it was another opening that was offered to Tomlinson.

But Tomlinson had a child on the way and was considering coaching on his dad’s staff in China.

After coaching in China, Tomlinson was ready to move back to Colorado. He returned as a coaching intern for one season before being promoted to Director of Player Development when Sean Kearney departed.

“I had a couple other opportunities around the country that I was entertaining a little bit, although my heart was always here at CU and I wanted to stay,” Tomlinson said. “You have to pay the bills at the end of the day. So those things I was entertaining, but then when this opportunity popped up, it just made too much sense to stay.”

So what does a Director of Player Development do?

“Well, first off, it's probably the most misleading title in America,” Tomlinson said. “It should be director of off the court player development because I'm actually not allowed on court with the guys due to the NCAA rules. So, yeah, they should work on changing that name.”

Tomlinson is allowed to be on the bench during games but is not allowed to be on the court coaching players during practices. He figures out other ways to contribute including building relationships with the players.

“I obviously have a lot of a lot of experience and I've gone through literally the footsteps that they're going through at the moment,” Tomlinson said. “So I can lean on them, they can lean on me for experience and just someone to talk to every day.”

He also takes care of much of the scheduling which is an exhausting task as is, especially this time of year. It can be very difficult to schedule teams in a fair manner for a Power-5 school. Nobody wants to play true road games.

During the season, Tomlinson will do advanced or future scouting. So he will be building the scouting reports for teams two to three games in advance so the other coaches can just worry about the next game.

He dabbles in recruiting but he isn’t allowed to go on the road to recruit so most of that is done by the assistant coaches.

“I'm not allowed on the road recruiting,” Tomlinson said. “So a lot of it for me, is obviously word of mouth from people I've met around the world, specifically obviously Australia. So I’m not allowed to do any recruiting on the road but recruits can call me and I can get in contact with our guys. And that's usually how it happens a lot of the time. But as far as you know, identifying talent, it's not really my deal.”

CU has targeted a couple of guys in Australia since hiring Tomlinson but they haven’t been able to reel one in yet. 


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