For the second time in less than two years, Tad Boyle will become a member of a hall of fame in his hometown.

Boyle, a Greeley native, will be inducted into the University of Northern Colorado Athletics Hall of Fame next month. He coached the Bears men’s basketball team from 2006-10, leading the program to a striking turnaround in its early years in Division I.

Boyle, 63, has been the University of Colorado men’s basketball coach since he left UNC.

Boyle will be one of seven hall of fame inductees honored during a ceremony Friday, Sept. 13 at the University Center on the UNC campus. The ceremony is scheduled for 5:30-8 p.m., and tickets are available at uncalumni.org/hall-of-fame.

The group will be recognized the next day during the football team’s home opener at Nottingham Field. UNC hosts Abilene Christian at 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 14.

A star scholastic player at Greeley Central High, Boyle was inducted into the Greeley Central Athletics Hall of Fame with its first class in January 2023.

“Any time you go into a hall of fame, it’s a great honor and a testament to all the people you worked with,” Boyle said.

Boyle is CU’s winningest coach in program history. He has a 298-178 record in 14 seasons with the Buffs, including 10 20-win seasons.

Boyle could win his 300th game at CU against UNC in early November. The teams are scheduled to play Nov. 8 in Boulder. CU opens the 2024-25 season Nov. 4 against Eastern Washington, a member of the Big Sky Conference with UNC.

Boyle coached only four seasons at UNC, but he led the program from a four-win season in his first year in 2006-07 to 25 wins three years later. Boyle’s first year with the Bears was the program’s first in the Big Sky Conference, and the team was one of the worst in the country.

UNC’s first year in Division I was the 2003-04 season.

UNC had a 25-8 record in Boyle’s last year in 2009-10 with an appearance in the postseason CollegeInsider.com Tournament.

Boyle is most proud of the program’s improvement in those four seasons during his 18 years in coaching. His record with the Bears was 56-66.

“That’s a tricky transition,” he said of moving to Division I. “But again, it didn’t happen alone. It happened with a lot of hard work from my staff, and they should understand they’re a part of this, and certainly the student-athletes I coached while I was at UNC.”

Boyle and two other inductees this year were originally elected in previous years. He was elected in 2022 and deferred his induction. Football player Jed Roberts was elected in 2020 and former women’s basketball coach Jaime White was elected with Boyle two years ago.

White, the women’s coach at Fresno State since she left Greeley in 2014, was a contemporary and colleague of Boyle’s at UNC. White also arrived in 2006, and the men’s and women’s programs shared office space in Bishop-Lehr Hall while renovations were in progress at Butler-Hancock Athletic Center.

Both coaches were Division I head coaches for the first time.

“Tad was so passionate,” White said. “We had to work with the men’s program because we shared gym space and practice facilities. He was so forward-thinking and thoughtful. He was good to work with. It was fun to be involved with him.”

The newly elected members this year are Jordan Davis, men’s basketball, 2019 graduate; Mariel Gutierrez, women’s soccer, 2018 graduate; Tom Runnells, a 1977 graduate from Greeley and Greeley West High, who was a Major League Baseball player and manager; Savannah Smith, women’s basketball’s all-time leading scorer, 2019, from Fossil Ridge High School in Fort Collins; and Aaron Smith, football, who played 13 years in the National Football League with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Davis, UNC’s all-time leading scorer with 2,272 points, will defer his induction to 2026 because of professional basketball obligations, the university said. He is currently playing with Rio Breogan in Liga ACB in Lugo, Spain.

Boyle recalled watching Runnells play at UNC as he grew up in Greeley. Runnells graduated from Greeley West in 1974.

Boyle said saw a variety of UNC sports when he lived in Greeley, including sneaking past security guards who checked student IDs.

Boyle said his familiarity with UNC and its athletic programs gave him a feel and a sense of the athletes to play for the Bears. He brought 12 years of experience as a Division I assistant to UNC, and he said he understood the transition process for the program.

Boyle mentioned former players such as Neal Kingman, Devon Beitzel and Will Figures, who were all in the program during 2006-11, as being important guys to the program’s growth and improvement.

The coach said the challenging times at UNC have stayed with him while coaching at CU. Boyle said he learned about the resilience of young men at UNC.

“It shows, the fact that, yeah, just because a freshman may struggle doesn’t mean that he can’t be a really, really good player two or three years down the road if they keep working, like those kids did,” Boyle said.

He again referred to Kingman, Beitzel and Figures, praising their careers and results at UNC while showing administrators and observers that the move to Division I was the right decision.

“To have that group of kids who turned into young men, show the progress they showed and to have the success, it was very gratifying to me,” Boyle said. “I think they proved to the naysayers that said we should stay at the Division II level, that, ‘Hey, you can have a very competitive Division I men’s basketball program in Greeley in the Big Sky Conference.’ ”