DALLAS — Lancaster’s Dillon Battie makes it look easy on the basketball court.
“I love competing,” said the 6-foot-8 senior. “It’s just a game where I can release all my stress and everything into it.”
Battie is one of the top high school players in Texas. And If you’ve been around the Southside of Dallas long enough, you know there’s a blueprint for basketball success that comes with his last name.
“You never want your kids to have unnecessary stress or pressure,” Dillon's father, Derrick Battie, said. “We understand that name and legacy, because everywhere we go they find out who we are, we get a certain amount of attention.”
Derrick Battie led South Oak Cliff High School to a state championship in 1992. He then became a four-year starter at Temple University under legendary coach John Chaney.
Dillon’s uncle, Tony, went to Texas Tech and was the No. 5 pick in the 1997 NBA Draft.
“They didn’t force it on me,” Dillon said. “They said, ‘If that’s what you want to do, we’re going to support your dreams’.”
Even with the basketball bloodlines, Dillon’s game isn’t similar to Derrick and Tony’s. They were both old-school big men, while Dillon was part of a new generation of forwards.
“He honestly could probably play all five positions, because of his athleticism and his ability to handle the ball,” Derrick Battie said.
It’s that versatility that had Division-I programs courting Battie. But eventually, Dillon felt the pull of his dad’s alma mater.
“Since I was a kid, I had always heard about it. So when I started getting my first couple offers, it was already on my mind,” said Dillon Battie about committing to Temple. “After the whole recruiting thing was over, I was like, ‘it would be kind of cool to do a legacy thing.’”
“I was surprised because he had a lot of other schools that were very high on the list,” Derrick Battie said. “At the end of the day, it wasn’t about the name or the conference. It was about family.”
And now, more than 30 years after his dad, Dillon will take the same path to Philly from Dallas.
“The biggest thing that I’ve told him about Temple is be prepared for the cold weather, but also be prepared to have a tough layer of skin when you deal with the Philly media, and deal with the Philly faithful,” Derrick Battie said.
“The thing that excites me the most is knowing that I’m gonna go there and I’m gonna dominate,” Dillon Battie said. “You know it’s a basketball school, it’s a basketball city.”
It’s a place where the Battie name flourishes once again.