The ‘soft touch’ belonged to Cathy Coker Batten
One thing is certain – Cathy Coker Batten loved basketball.
Batten wasn’t a pushover in academics, but she was a super achiever at basketball.
The daughter of Thurman and Essie Claire Coker of Cades, Cathy Coker, now married with the last name Batten, left records in the wake of her playing days at Salem Academy and Baptist College.
“We knew early on when she started playing junior varsity that she was going to be a good player,” said Clifton Coker, Cathy’s older brother.
Batten had “the touch.”
“She made shots that others couldn’t make,” her brother said. “She had a soft touch. She had a determination. She may have started a few games slow, but by the end, she had her rhythm.”
Batten was a scorer, but she wasn’t selfish either.
“Cathy would pass the ball around a lot,” her brother added, “but if the game was tight, she wanted the ball. She was a competitor. She wanted to win and she knew she could get the job done.”
Clifton who was a couple of years ahead of Cathy played a little one-on-one on occasion with his younger sister.
Today, Clifton plays one-on-one basketball with his son, Phillip.
“He’s gotten to the age where’s he’s beating me,” Clifton added. “I tell him if he doesn’t watch out, I’ll bring Aunt Cathy up here to play some one-on-one with him.”
Clifton is the one who nominated his younger sister as an inductee into the Clarendon County Athletic Hall of Fame.
“Cathy was an outstanding player in high school and college,” he stated in his nomination. “While owning many records, she was also known for her unselfish play. The team always came first with her.”
Batten was a natural scorer. Her soft yet accurate touch put an average of 20.4 points on the board her senior year, while shooting 55 percent from the floor.
She could get off the hardwood, too.
Her senior year at Salem she averaged 12.6 rebounds a game.
Batten’s unselfish nature was evident in the number of assists she averaged. During her last year at Salem, Batten handed off the ball so a teammate could score an average of 3.4 times a game.
Batten’s proficiency at scoring and rebounding led her team to the state championship her senior year in high school.
She was so respected by her alma mater that her basketball jersey was retired the same year she graduated.
Batten’s talents in basketball didn’t go unnoticed by college teams either.
Her academic abilities and her athletic prowess earned Batten a “full ride” to Baptist College, now known as Charleston Southern University.
She didn’t let them down in Charleston either.
As a freshman, Batten earned the title as team captain, an honor she maintained throughout her collegiate career.
Her honors and achievements didn’t end there.
From the moment her sneakers hit the hardwoods at Baptist College, Batten began accumulating points, rebounds, assists and percentages that still stand today.
From 1988 until 1996, Batten was Baptist College’s all time leading scorer with 1,507. Her record was broken in 1996. Today, her record stands at number 2.
When Batten graduated from Baptist College in 1988, then-Athletic Director Howard Bagwell called her “one of the most outstanding persons who has ever graduated from Baptist College.”
“In addition to being the all-time leading scorer in women’s basketball, she won the Wynn Christian Leadership Award in both her junior and senior years,” Bagwell added. “No other person has won this prestigious award two times. It is awarded by the coaches of our 13 NCAA teams. The winning of this award is particularly significant since we are a Christian college.”
Ten years after graduating from Baptist College, Batten was one of five new inductees into Charleston Southern University’s Hall of Fame.
At the time of her induction, Batten still owned four school records, including single game scoring, season scoring, career scoring average and second in career scoring.
“I’m definitely honored to have been chosen for the Clarendon County Athletic Hall of Fame,” Batten said Jan. 9, “but I couldn’t have done it without my teammates. They were the ones who kept passing me the ball and helping me score.”
Batten also credited her now deceased basketball coach Leslie Gibbons for giving her the right direction.
“He was more than just my coach,” she said. “He cared for us. That allowed me to play ball and not worry about anything else.”
Claire Murdoch who played with Batten on the Salem team called her former teammate a “great sportsman.”
“She was tall but she could dribble the ball with the best of them,” Murdoch remembered Jan. 9. “Cathy was also aggressive, but she was never mean. She was always fair.”
“Cathy loved the sport and she loved the people,” Murdoch added. “She was good. Everyone loved Cathy. She was the player you always wanted on your team.”
Batten said that while she did practice a good bit, most of her talent came from God.
“He gave me the talent. ‘Here it is. Take it and use it,’” she said. “There is no doubt my talent was God-given.”
Batten is married to Irv Batten and the couple has two children. She is a physical education teacher at Spann Elementary School in Dorchester School District 2 in Summerville.
