Mark Byington Isn't A Typical Basketball Dad, But He's Better Off For Being One
In this story:
NASHVILLE—-The light blue thermal hoodie, black sweatpants, dark blue mesh hat and Nike Air Max 90’s do their best to conceal Mark Byington’s identity as he sits five rows above the Ensworth bench. So does he.
It’s not as if Byington is working to hide as much as he's working to shift the attention from his presence halfway up the stands to the 10 players on the floor. Vanderbilt’s head coach has become good at that over the years.
Everyone in the gym knows who Byington is. But, he appears to intentionally avoid showing up in Vanderbilt clothing, he’s not on the refs’ case like he often is at work and he’s perhaps the quietest person in the gym.
“He’s pretty emotionless,” Byington’s son Chase told Vandy on SI. “I think the one time I've actually seen him stand up was my first in-game dunk. That was one of the first times I saw him show emotion, but I very rarely see him show emotion during my games. It’s honestly pretty impressive. I don't know how he does it.”
Knowing Byington, his bleacher demeanor isn’t all that surprising considering how calm he often is on the sideline at Memorial Gymnasium. His favorite artists–Pearl Jam and Metalica–are misleading in that way. He still makes his voice known often there as he’s constantly looking to manipulate the game in Vanderbilt’s favor, though. That’s his job. Vanderbilt basketball’s revitalization and back-to-back 20-win seasons under the second-year head coach wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
This role—particularly for someone with Byington’s name value—requires something different of Byington than his other one. In a way, instruction and a demonstrative nature isn’t as needed from Byington in this gym like it is in the other one. And this role is more important.
A few rows in front of the Vanderbilt head coach—who goes by Mark and Dad in the hours that he’s within Ensworth’s Elian Athletics Center—his son Chase–who will join Vanderbilt’s program in the summer–is in the midst of a crosstown battle against Brentwood Academy. A look out at the court presents a row of cardboard cutouts with Chase’s face plastered on them lining the front row of the student section while he plays his final home regular season game as a high school player.
This is Chase’s night, and his dad is trying to keep it that way.
“You kind of just try to not draw a whole lot of attention to yourself when you're here,” Byington told Vandy on SI. “Usually I try to blend in. Every now and then I might say something.”
Byington’s in-game posture always appears to include him leaning back in a bleacher seat or leaning forward with his left hand cupped around the left side of his face. Chase’s dad often has his phone in his lap and his Apple Watch on his left wrist, but those who contact him for the hour and a half to two hours that Ensworth is on the floor will generally have to wait.
The pregame conversation with three friends gathered around his seat—in which Byington demonstrates the more laid back seemingly relaxed demeanor that isn’t often present around the Huber Center and Memorial Gymnasium—and the positioning could indicate apathy to some. That’s a facade, though.
“The truth of it is, I'm extremely nervous at his games,” Byington said. “It's the most nervous I'll ever get. Even during my own games, I kind of think of my job and what I need to do. But I sit here as a parent and I feel like my heart's about to come out of my chest and the anxiety is incredible.”
Perhaps Byington’s commentary comes nearly exclusively under his breath, but he’s dialed in—even while conversing. “Chase, that’s it,” he says as his son fires up a right-wing three that ultimately hit the front rim and missed despite being on line. “I thought that was in.” A few plays later when some contact changed a play; “that’s a bad call.”
Byington says he’s friends with a number of parents of other Ensworth players, but that he sits alone so that he can be “isolated to where I can just watch every detail of the game.” Vanderbilt’s schedule admittedly makes it difficult for Byington to be there as much as the other parents in the stands, but he’s in his element when he’s in the building.
Perhaps he’s not on the clock, but Byington can’t shut his basketball mind off. The Vanderbilt head coach says that he tracks his son’s plus/minus in his head. The idea that he’s subliminally breaking down actions as they happen isn’t all that difficult to imagine, either. “This is basketball,” he says as if the premise of being unengaged isn’t even in the question.
“J.J. Reddick describes certain guys as psychos just because they're so dedicated to their craft,” Vanderbilt forward AK Okereke told Vandy on SI, "And I would identify Byington as the same. Like, he's a psycho for basketball.”
This setting isn’t about the Vanderbilt head coach, but the way he’s wired doesn’t appear to lend itself to anything but this type of intensity in the bleachers. Anything other than a fully engaged Byington would be off brand.
When it’s all over for the night, Byington says he always tries to approach Chase with feedback on the things that he did well as well as the things that he can do better. Perhaps he doesn’t flaunt, but by the end of Ensworth’s win over Brentwood Academy–which is coached by Byington’s friend Andy Blackston, who has bonded with the Vanderbilt head coach over Pearl Jam–Byington has taken in more than just about anyone in the gym.
Byington made a decision early on in Chase’s life that if he was going to be a basketball parent, he wasn’t going to be like a number of parents he had seen over the years. The idea that he would blend in was one that he believed was better for Chase, whether Byington was a coach or not.
He wasn’t going to worry about anyone but his son. He wasn’t going to complain to the coach about playing time or tell him how to coach his team. Chase’s dad made a decision early on that he wasn’t going to be over involved.
“I didn’t like the parents that did that,” Byington said. “It put extra pressure on their kid and kind of lived experience through them. I just think right now when I'm sitting in the stands, my job is to support him and help them any way I can. I want him to kind of go through some hard times, experiences and kind of see what he's all about and grow. But, when he is down or needs a pick up, I want to be there for him.”
Chase says that Byington was clear with him early that he wasn’t going to force him to be a basketball player. In some ways he appeared to feel as if it would’ve been easier had Chase not chosen basketball. When Chase decided early on that this was for him, though, he’s been pushed.
The idea that Chase would choose something other than basketball appeared to be shortsighted, though. Chase estimates that he went to his first basketball game as a three-week old. Pictures on his mom’s Instagram account document him and his dad after games at each of Byington’s coaching stops. It wasn’t as if this path was inevitable, but it wasn’t all that hard to foresee.
Chase had a decision to make before Byington presented the opportunity to play for Vanderbilt. The idea that he would call it a basketball career and attend college as a normal student wasn’t all that foreign. He decided that he was going to go for this, though.
Thus, the feedback sessions have continued. Byington’s son doesn’t consider Byington’s postgame feedback as “harsh” or controlling, but says it’s direct enough to lead to improvement.
“His culture that he really stresses–it’s just to work hard,” Chase said. “If I work hard then I can go anywhere I want to in life and that was the big thing. He doesn't really let me get many days where I sit around and do nothing; it doesn't make him happy.”
Byington doesn’t approach Chase’s journey lightly, but he’ll seemingly always stop short of going to the Ensworth coaching staff to complain about playing time or the lack of actions run for his son. The Vanderbilt coach has enough context as a result of his job to realize that there’s always more to decisions than meets the eye initially.
The Vanderbilt coach has taken in Ensworth coach Bradley Pierson, has allowed him to watch Vanderbilt practices–which says something considering Byington’s private nature–and has taken time to discuss concepts in his office with Pierson.
When it’s Pierson’s time to be on the sideline while Byington’s son is on the floor, though, Byington acknowledges who the coach is and who the fan is.
“It's hard sometimes for fans or parents to understand everything that's going on or maybe going into why we're doing things a certain way and obviously he understands that, gets that better than anybody,” Pierson told Vandy on SI. “I think he's willing to be helpful if we need him to be helpful, if I've got a question. He's been more than gracious, giving me his time, or picking up the phone or whatever, but for the most part he's just like any other parent when it comes to that he just wants to watch Chase's basketball game and hopes to see us play well.”
While Bobby Cremins was running the show at College of Charleston and Byington was hanging on every word, a number of members of Cremins’ staff knew something that Byington didn’t know.
Byington knew the business and that Cremins was a teacher that he needed to be around as he looked to ascend in it. He knew that he needed good players in order to win. He knew that if he ever got his chance to run his own program, he needed to put those players in an effective culture in order to get results from them. There was something he was missing at that point, though.
“I think I became a way better coach when I became a father,” Byington said. “Before I was a father, I kind of looked at it from the perspective of ‘that’s a player.’ But then when you're a father, you realize that who you're coaching, somebody else feels the same way about them that I do about my son.”
Byington says that he feels he’s always been empathetic towards his players and has cared about their happiness, but that having a son of his own has compelled him to spend more of his time making sure that his players are happy off the floor. The intentionality has carried over to the way Byington’s staff operates.
The sacrifices Vanderbilt’s staff has to make in order to put out a winner haven’t necessarily changed because of the way Byington runs things, but the way they operate has Byington’s matured fingerprints all over it.
Vanderbilt assistant Rick Ray’s sons are always in the bleachers at Memorial Gymnasium and around the practice facility. Director of Basketball Operations Andy Farrell’s daughters are more than familiar with the scenery on West End. Chase isn’t a stranger, either–although Vanderbilt has to annoyingly declare that he’s on an unofficial visit whenever he comes to campus because of his age.
“I think the most refreshing thing for me–and my family–is that Coach Byington truly ‘gets it,’” Farrell told Vandy on SI. “Being a dad himself, he understands the sacrifices that are often made by the family unit and he welcomes family into every aspect of the program. My office walls are covered in my kids’ drawings, my family has been able to come on numerous road trips and coach welcomes them anytime he can. That’s so refreshing. In turn, I want to make sure I’m doing my part and working harder and more efficiently.”
As Chase puts his stuff down on the bench and his soft yellow/orange trance Nike Sabrina 3s push off the floor, he’s at the top of the scouting report for the opposing student section. It’s not as if he’s done anything. He’s rather unassuming, in fact.
He’s got the most famous dad in just about every gym he plays in, though. Chase says that MBA and Pope Saint John Paul II’s student sections were the two most aggressive towards him. Pope John Paul’s student section was the first to really look into who Chase was and how they could work to get to him, he says. MBA is Ensworth’s rival and was inevitably going to go after Chase.
Perhaps Chase’s teammates were jarred by the nature of the comments heading in his direction, but it was all in a day’s work for Nashville high school basketball’s most heckled player.
“Just as a byproduct of having a dad who is the head coach at Vanderbilt, he kinda has a little bit of the target on his back,” Pierson said. “He knows it's coming, so I think he's able to mentally prepare for that on the front end and he just keeps coming back. We're gonna play tomorrow night and he's gonna get heckled, you can almost guarantee it. But, I think he knows it's coming and he's able to compartmentalize that and try to just focus on what's going on between the lines.”
Chase says that it wasn’t much of an adjustment to play through the heckling he receives because “it’s just part of sports” and because of the idea that he doesn’t change anything about his approach as a result. The idea that he did anything to deserve this is something he laughs off, too. “Not that I know of,” he says.
Through the inevitable criticism and trash talk from opposing fanbases as well as a lingering ankle injury that’s held Chase out, Pierson says he admires the way that his senior wing has continued to show up. Pierson admits that this isn’t how anyone would’ve drawn up Chase’s senior season, but there he was letting it fly a week ago as Ensworth got the better of Brentwood Academy.
That’s a posture that Chase has taken on consistently. Chase is best when he’s letting it fly and drowning out all the noise in the gym directed at him. He’s still got to get better, though. The first one to admit that; his dad.
“He's intelligent,” Byington said. “He knows how to play. And he's a really good shooter. He probably needs 20 pounds of muscle. He needs further development, but his role is going to be to make everybody else better. So in order for him to do that, he's got to get better. And I know he's up to the challenge.”
In a way, the inevitability of Byington and Chase leaving their Virginia home for a power-five job was amplified on Nov. 6, 2023, as Byington’s James Madison team went to the Breslin Center and stunned Tom Izzo’s Michigan State team on opening night. Izzo doesn’t appear to be bitter, though.
Before Chase made his college decision, Byington had a conversation with Izzo about the dynamic that Chase’s commitment to Vanderbilt would present. Izzo’s son, Steven, was a five-year walk-on at Michigan State under his dad.
Izzo told Byington that coaching his son was “the best experience that he’s ever had” and sprinkled in a word of advice as to what it would take for it to end successfully.
“I think it’s easy to coach your son when he’s clearly the best player,” Izzo told Byington, “Or when he’s clearly not taking time from anybody else who’s playing.”
Byington says that when Chase arrives at Vanderbilt he’ll be in a role that will involve him not taking playing time from anyone else within the program. He says that his son is ready for the role because he’s a “great teammate, he’s smart and he understands basketball.” The idea Byington has in mind is that Chase–who has already made a push to other Nashville-area high schoolers over the years–will help the program in on-campus recruiting because of his familiarity with Vanderbilt and the area.
The role that Chase will step into when he begins his college career in the summer is one that Byington calls “sacrificial”--which Chase says is a good way to describe the future role. He knows Chase’s personality and basketball acumen makes him capable of it, though. While Chase learns the ins and outs of the role, his dad is going to be enjoying every second of it.
“Truthfully, it was probably more for me than him, to have the experience of being around my son for four more years,” Byington said. “He's had to sacrifice a ton. With my job requirements, I've missed a lot of his basketball, or maybe missed a school dance or maybe missed out on a lot of things. And really, for me to have four more years with them is something for me.”
Chase has moved seven times as a result of his dad’s profession and has often had to adjust to the way life works while his dad is out on the road recruiting, at away games or stuck in the office ripping through Synergy clips.
Byington always finds a way to watch Chase’s games, but finding a date that lines up with Vanderbilt’s schedule well enough for him to be in the gym for them is often difficult. Byington remembers watching as Chase’s recruiting process picked up the summer prior to his senior year of high school, but no Division-I offers came.
Chase says that he accepted that he wasn’t “gonna get good minutes on any D1 team” and had a decision to make as he entered his senior season. Was he going to keep playing basketball? Was he going to sacrifice his education for a four-year career at a level below Division-I? Or was he just going to turn his attention to academics?
As a result of his dad’s career, Chase has gotten used to change in his life. He says all the moving has been good for him and has taught him social skills. Through all of the change, though, he had an idea as to what his future was going to look like. Ask his middle school coach. Ask his previous high school coach. Chase was insistent that he was going to go somewhere other than where his dad was coaching.
Then, his dad presented an opportunity for Chase to play at Vanderbilt. His thinking changed quickly. Chase says the opportunity was one he “couldn’t turn down” as a result of the opportunities Vanderbilt presents academically in comparison to the average Division-II school that he may have attended otherwise.
Perhaps more importantly, Chase and his dad get to experience this together. Whatever Vanderbilt accomplishes in the next four years, Chase will be a part of. No matter what it does or doesn’t do, Chase will be with his dad and Byington will be with his son. Now Chase gets the version of his dad that Byington has made an effort not to be in the stands at Ensworth. He also gets his dad every day.
“Since he's a coach and it takes up so much of his time, I'm looking forward to spending more time with him,” Chase said. “Being able to be with them more than I am right now where he's with his team just as much as he's with me, it’ll be good.”
_(1)-b3e453dfe426b2dd4b83a12540ebdb37.jpeg "Joey Dwyer")
Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
Follow joey_dwy