Corey Batoon explains how Hawaiian upbringing helped mold love of football

The Missouri Tigers added new defensive coordinator Corey Batoon to their staff in January, a Hawaii native who spent the past three seasons as the defensive coordinator at South Alabama.

Batoon brings 32 years of coaching experience with him to Columbia, making six different FBS stops since 2009 prior to joining the Tigers. But his roots start in The Aloha State, an area that’s blossomed with talent over the years and is where Batoon’s love for the game began.

“Culturally it’s important. It’s a warrior background, a warrior mindset, and it’s much like the South in regards to you just grew up playing football,” Batoon explained at Mizzou’s Pre-Spring Press Conference. “And my dad was a college basketball coach, [I] can’t play hoops at all. Horrible at it. So you kind of just do the things that you have some success doing.”

Batoon surely found his niche and success in football, moving stateside where he played safety at San Diego City Junior College before transferring to Long Beach State to close out his collegiate career.

He worked his way up the coaching ranks following his playing career, starting his coaching career at the Junior College level with Pierce College before finding himself at the SEC level with Ole Miss in 2012. Serving as an assistant AD for player development before being promoted to special teams coordinator and safeties coach in 2015.

Batoon returned to his home state in 2017, named the defensive coordinator and safeties coach at Hawaii during an impressive two-year run for the Rainbow Warriors. As he continued speaking on the football culture in Hawaii and the state’s rapid growth in the game.

“Growing up on island that’s kind of what you did. It was kind of, I wouldn’t say mandated, but everybody does it and it seems like from a background standpoint it fit into the culture of the place. And so it’s not a surprise the production that they’ve had in regards to [when] you look at per capita NFL players,” Batoon explained.

“A small, tiny island, small population base, but the amount of players that have been able to do it and now you look even further west to the American Samoa, Tonga. You look at those guys coming over to the States and being able to pick up the game pretty quickly,” Batoon said. “I think that it goes back to that warrior ethos that our culture kind of is based on.”

It will be interesting to see if Missouri head coach Eliah Drinkwitz possibly allows Batoon to recruit in his home state moving forward. But if not, he’ll still be providing his own spirit from a place that’s unique and valuable to the culture of the sport.