Mike Bartolina

Mike Bartolina joined the Nebraska track and field coaching staff as the pole vault coach in August of 2023.

With 25 years of coaching experience at the Division I level, Bartolina has coached 14 athletes to All-America honors and more than 50 NCAA qualifiers. In the junior college ranks, Bartolina coached 16 national champions. On the international level, Bartolina has coached three Olympic-qualifying athletes, with multiple U.S. Olympic Trial qualifiers in the pole vault, long jump, javelin and decathlon.

Bartolina's impact on the Husker program has been felt immediately. In just his second season in 2025, Bartolina coached freshman Dyson Wicker to a runner-up finish at the Big Ten Indoor Championships and the No. 2 mark in indoor school history (18-2 3/4) and No. 3 mark outdoors (18-2 1/2). Wicker went on to earn second-team All-America honors at the NCAA Indoor Championships and was the top freshman pole vaulter in the country.

Under Bartolina, Wicker opened up the 2025-26 indoor season in December with a school record of 18-5 1/4 (5.62m). 

Bartolina coached three Husker women to top-five indoor pole vault marks all-time at Nebraska in 2025, as well as three top-10 pole vault marks outdoors. Arina Razina and Jacelyn Neighbors both set the No. 2 mark indoors (14-0 1/2), while Kylie Clark's 13-11 ranked No. 5 all-time.

Bartolina came to Nebraska from Illinois State, where he served as an assistant coach overseeing pole vault and the horizontal jumps for two seasons. Prior to his time at Illinois State, Bartolina spent two years at Louisiana Tech, coaching Denzel Harper to a Conference USA Championship and All-America honors in the long jump.

From 2016-2018, Bartolina coached at the University of Alabama, highlighted by Lakan Taylor becoming Alabama’s first NCAA women’s pole vault champion in 2017. On the men’s team, he helped coach them to its first SEC Track and Field Championship in 46 years, while capturing the USTFCCCA Men’s Program of the Year award.

Bartolina spent 2005-2016 as an assistant coach for Southeastern Louisiana University. The Lions captured a trio of Southland Conference Championships and a 13th-place men’s team finish at the 2016 NCAA Indoor Championships while Bartolina was coaching.

Bartolina took on a head coaching role at Ranger College from 1999-2000. His team collected two runner-up finishes at the 1999 NJCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships and 16 athletes won NJCAA individual events throughout his head coaching stint.

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.

Mike and his wife, Janna have three children, Ethan, Molly and Max.