Baturay Balic
former professional soccer player
Baturay also goes by Batu and was born on July 18, 1987, in Izmir, Turkey. Batu is a former professional soccer player with a family history of soccer; his father is coach Gursel Balic, also a former pro and Turkish national team player and his grandfather was coach Beytullah Balic. With that history, soccer was in his blood and Batu started playing soccer early in the streets at around seven years old. Not long after that he joined a club team and played in competitive youth academy leagues at all age categories before he became a professional. Batu has played for the following various teams:
BALCOVASPOR 1998-2000
ALTINORDU 2000-2004
ALANYASPOR 2004-2007
MENEMENSPOR 2008-2009
Due to a rare injury, Batu decided to end his professional career and turned his focus to his education. He went to university to study English and Russian languages.
Batu’s next goal was to be a coach just like his father and grandfather. After he moved to the USA (2014) he worked as a coach in a private soccer school in Washington DC, Virginia as well as Maryland with age groups eight to thirteen. Then he started doing his own youth soccer clinics through the Parks and Rec department on Orcas Island, WA (2015). His soccer program grew fast on the island and became one of the favorite sports of kids and the community.
He also coached the Orcas Island High School Soccer team over the years and helped them to win second place in Washington state in 2018 as well as the state championship in 2021. The Orcas Island High School team has been league champions for 6 years in a row and has the longest undefeated record in their league (over 4 years of 60-plus matches ). He has mentored and helped many young players to achieve their goals such as getting soccer scholarships from colleges, winning MVP of the league awards, breaking goal records, etc. Currently, small Orcas Island with less than 6000 thousand people living year-round has one of the most successful soccer programs in Washington State.
