Eric Bartle has been coaching baseball, basketball and soccer at Valley Central for, well, a long time. Not even he has ever had to deal with the type of shutdown and cancellation of sports that began last March.
During VC’s virtual commencement, Bartle was announced as one of the district’s 2020 retirees.
“I have retired from teaching but hope to stay involved with coaching depending on what happens with the schools,” Bartle said via email.
“I think having missed last season played some part in returning and being involved this year. We will have to see what happens with schools and student safety as far as coaching goes this year.”
Physical education courses will certainly look different from what everyone is used to, but Coach Bartle will not be one of the teachers students have for their remote or socially distanced gym class.

As students plan on returning to school on an amended schedule, decisions regarding interscholastic athletics are still up in the air, including multiple plans for condensed seasons.
First up for Bartle would be soccer, where he has served as the assistant coach for the varsity boys team the past few years and was the head JV coach in years prior.
Fall sports have a tentative start date of September 21 for practices, but that has not been given approval from the state yet. Once school starts, more information will be available to make decisions on when sports will be able to start.
One of the backup plans is to have a further condensed season starting in January, if athletics cannot take place in the fall. That would put coaches like Bartle, who are involved in sports in each season, in an interesting spot. Not to mention multi-sport athletes.
The 2015 Varsity845 Basketball Coach of the Year discussed his initial plans on retirement.
“The plan was to hopefully stay involved in some aspect of coaching, as well as being able to spend more time with family during retirement,” he said.
Currently, it is not clear which sports will actually happen and when they will be, but when they do, Bartle hopes to be there.
This past baseball season Bartle would have had a solid group of seniors, who have largely grown together since they were eight years old. They were coached by VC’s assistant, Brian Rosenberger, over the years.
“We were very optimistic about the season with having many seniors back,” Bartle said. “Unfortunately we never got the chance to see what could have been since we got canceled due to the virus.”
The two-time Varsity845 Baseball Coach of the Year (2000 and 2010) would not end the year without seeing that group of seniors one more time.“I had the pleasure to hand out end-of-the-year athletic awards to senior athletes. It was great seeing their response as well as the response of their family,” he said. “It was also exciting to say thank you for their time and commitment that they have given.”