Michael Batolina enters his first season as an assistant coach in charge of pole vault and horizontal jumps with the Illinois State track & field program.
With 22 years of coaching experience at the Division 1 level, Bartolina has guided 13 athletes to All-America honors and 50+ qualifiers to the NCAA Preliminary Championships during his time at Louisiana Tech, Alabama and Southeastern Louisiana. He is also USA Track & Field Level II certified coach in both jumps and combined events.
In his two-year stint at Louisiana Tech, Bartolina helped coach Denzel Harper to a C-USA championship and All-American honors in the long jump.
From 2016 to 2018, Bartolina spent two years as assistant coach at the University of Alabama, helping Lakan Taylor become Alabama’s first NCAA women’s pole vault champion in 2017. He also guided the men’s team to its first SEC Track and Field Championship in 46 years, as well as capturing the USTFCCCCA Men’s Program of the Year award.
Bartolina spent 11 years as an assistant coach at Southeastern Louisiana University from 2005 to 2016. While at Southeastern, Bartolina helped to guide the Lions to three Southland Conference Championships and a 13th-place men’s team finish at the 2016 NCAA Indoor Championships, which is the highest finish of any sport in SLU’s history.
In 2016, Bartolina also led Devin King to two appearances in both the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships, where he notched a third-place finish in both meets and went on to compete at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials.
Bartolina’s two years as a head coach came at Ranger College (1999-2000), where he helped lead his team to a pair of second-place finishes at the 1999 NJCAA indoor and outdoor track and field championships. Bartolina’s athletes won 16 NJCAA individual event championships during his two seasons as head coach. He also served as an assistant coach at Texas A&M (2003-04), McNeese State (2000-02) and UTRGV (1998-99).
On the national level, Bartolina has had a hand in coaching three athletes who have qualified for the Olympics, with multiple U.S. Olympic Trial qualifiers in the pole vault, long jump, javelin and decathlon. Under Bartolina’s tutelage, Kistian Rahnu placed fourth in the men’s heptathlon at the 2006 Indoor IAAF World Championships.
Bartolina earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the University of Central Oklahoma in 1992 and 1996, respectively. He was a pole vaulter on the track and field team from 1987-90. He and his wife, Janna have thre
