Battle Mountain hires new athletic director for 2025-2026 school year

Battle Mountain will begin the 2025-2026 school year with a new athletic director.

Zach Holden, who spent the last seven years as a physical education teacher and athletic director at Ricardo Flores Magón Academy in Denver, said the Battle Mountain job and Vail valley area “checked a whole lot of boxes.”

“It feels like a perfect fit for what Battle Mountain needs with the experience I have and the energy I have,” he said.

Holden takes the reins from Bobby Ecker, who spent one year at Battle Mountain after serving as the athletic director at Vail Mountain School for nine years. Michelle Nixon — the athletic director prior to Ecker — is still on the school’s administrative staff. Holden said efforts in the spring and early summer by both Nixon and Ecker made the transition seamless.

“I really do have a super strong team that was ready for me to come in,” Holden said. “I feel like I’m stepping into a well-oiled machine.”

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Holden hails from just outside of Asheville, North Carolina. After graduating from Western Carolina University, he accepted his first job teaching K-6 physical education in the San Carlos Apache Reservation outside of Phoenix, Arizona. After two years, he moved to Denver, where he inherited an after school lineup at Ricardo Flores Magón Academy that included tennis and chess. Over his tenure at the charter school, he added flag football, basketball, soccer and volleyball. He also met his wife, Olivia.

“It’s been a fun journey,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been able to take a lot from the different places I’ve been.”

Holden reflected on how living and working in Arizona was the first time in his life he was the minority. That continued at Ricardo Flores Magón Academy, which serves a predominantly Latino student community.

“I was putting myself in different situations to try and gain community with people I didn’t have experience with in my youth,” he said. “Finding out the population at Battle Mountain is a majority Latin community made me excited that I’m not losing what I’d just spent so much time with and loving and being a part of in northwest Denver.”

After watching his first kindergarten class graduate to high school, Holden figured the prep realm was also his logical next personal and professional step.

“I found Battle Mountain,” he said. “The more and more I read the job description, got to talk to (Principal) Mills and Gentry (Nixon) and (Rob) Parish, and Brandee (Cordova), the athletic secretary, the more I realized this job fits exactly what I’m looking for”

Having grown up playing football, basketball, baseball and track throughout high school, Holden said he’s excited to continue pushing his boundaries as he guides programs he didn’t have growing up in North Carolina — Nordic and Alpine skiing and ice hockey. That being said, bringing the school’s football program back to prominence is a priority.

“Football is a really important thing to me personally,” he said. “People want it back, whether they have an athlete or not. It really is one of the best ways, in my experience, to rally a community.”

Battle Mountain forfeited the second-half of its 2022 season due to a rash of injuries and concussions. In 2023, former Battle Mountain linebacker and fullback Angelo Vasquez guided a junior varsity team through to a 5-5 record. But last August, low turnout at pre-season workouts forced the team to cancel the campaign again, as players joined forces with Eagle Valley. CHSAA’s two-year cycle means Battle Mountain won’t have a varsity team this year, but Holden is optimistic about having a junior varsity squad.

“If that is what it takes to keep our foot in the door and make sure we’re working our way to having a varsity and JV and competing at a high level, then JV this year is what we’ll do,” he said. “We’re really looking forward to having students in the building next week to try and really pitch and remind people — because there has been a couple years without a program — that Husky football is back.”

Across all sports, Holden hopes to instill a culture of “integrity, not taking short cuts and doing things the right way.”

“There’s a lot of options for shortcuts in today’s world, whether it’s AI on your homework or trying to switch schools to join a program,” he said. “The team aspect, working together, loyalty and sacrifice and all that stuff that I grew up on and that played a huge role in who I am today — a lot of that seems to be not as apparent as it used to be.”

“I’m a big believer in community and the strength it has,” he continued. “And I’m feeling very lucky to be a part of this village that I’ve stepped into.”