Boyes, a football standout and three-sport letterman at Whitman, later enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a coach, professor and administrator at California State University at Sacramento. Coming to Whitman after one year at Washington State College, he played basketball and baseball for the Missionaries, but football was his best sport. He was an all-conference quarterback, served as a senior co-captain and won the Niles Trophy as Whitman's most outstanding and inspirational football player. A graduate of Monroe (Wash.) High School near Seattle, he turned down a tryout with football’s Cleveland Browns, choosing to go to school and earn his degree.
After Whitman, Boyes married one of his college classmates, Eileen Golden ‘52, and worked for two years at Walla Walla High School as a teacher and coach. In 1956, after two years of active duty as a lieutenant in the Coast Guard, he began a career at California State Sacramento that eventually spanned more than four decades. As head coach of the baseball team, he won two Pacific Coast regional championships and led the Hornets to a second-place finish in the NAIA national championship tournament in 1962. His teams won 11 Far Western Conference titles while compiling an overall conference record of 166 victories against just 71 losses.
Boyes also was an assistant football coach for 12 seasons, served as athletic director on three separate occasions, and was chair of the physical education department for seven years. He earned his doctoral degree in education at the University of the Pacific in 1965 and retired from Cal State Sacramento in 1991, after having also served as Dean of the Division of Health and Physical Education, Vice President for Administration and Business Affairs, and Director of University Advancement. He is a member of the Hornet Athletics Hall of Fame.
Boyes, 76, and his wife, now retired and dividing time between Donner Lake, Calif., and Hawaii, have three grown children, including son Mike who set a number of school passing records as a quarterback at the University of Montana.
