Mike Bartolina

Louisiana Tech University Mike Bartolina enters his second season with Louisiana Tech’s men’s and women’s track and field programs. Bartolina has over 20 years of coaching experience at the collegiate level, coaching at UTRGV, McNeese State, Texas A&M, Southeastern Louisiana, Alabama and junior college powerhouses Barton Community College and Ranger College. During his first season at Louisiana Tech Coach Bartolina had an immediate impact leading Denzel Harper to a CUSA championship and All-American honors in the long jump. Bartolina’s coaching prowess led him to serve as an assistant at Alabama from 2016-18. He led Lakan Taylor to become Alabama’s first NCAA women’s pole vault champion in 2017. Under Bartolina’s tutelage, Alabama pole vaulters set both the men’s and women’s indoor school records and combined to tally 17 marks that rank inside the top 20 in the Crimson Tide’s men’s and women’s all-time pole vault lists. Riding the contribution of Taylor’s national championship in the pole vault, Alabama’s women’s team finished in 3rd place at the 2017 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships. It was Alabama’s highest finish in 23 years. In 2018, Bartolina helped guide the Crimson Tide’s men’s team to its first SEC Track and Field Championship in 47 years as well as winning the Men’s NCAA National Program of the Year Award for the combined highest placing teams in cross country, indoor track and field, and outdoor track and field. Prior to joining the Alabama coaching staff, Bartolina spent 11 years (2005-16) as an assistant coach at Southeastern Louisiana, where he helped produce 33 regional performances, and seven All-America honors. Southeastern Louisiana notched three Southland Conference championships during Bartolina’s 11-year tenure in Hammond, Louisiana. Bartolina has also coached athletes who have competed in multiple Olympics, World Championships and Pan American Games over the past 20 years. His athletes have held national records in five different countries, and he has coached at least one athlete at every U.S. Olympic Trials since 1996. Bartolina earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from The University of Central Oklahoma in 1992 and 1996, respectively. Bartolina competed as a pole vaulter for Oklahoma State’s track and field team from 1987-90.