Steve Bartlein is from south of Milwaukee, a small community where he grew up with the game of baseball. After high school, he played for UW-Whitewater where he worked his way into a starting role playing the infield.

After college, he became a high school teacher and baseball coach for four years for Brookfield East and Brookfield Central. Although he knew he always wanted to be a coach, it wasn’t until he became the head coach for those programs that he knew he wanted to do it full time.

However, that wasn’t possible for a high school coach to do as coaches are only allowed to have a limited amount of contact with the athletes outside of their summer season, so he took on a role as assistant coach at Carroll University as well. It was during his time there that he realized that, although he liked the idea of building a high school program, he preferred the flexibility of a full-time collegiate job because he’s able to do baseball 24/7.

“You can build a great team and training program all you want, but you can’t really do anything with them because you only get 2 ½ months with the kids,” Bartlein said. “Whereas, in college, you get nine months and arguably 12 if you have a decent setup for them over the summer.”

Meanwhile, momentum was building in River Falls for the university to bring back their baseball program for the first time in over 20 years. In order to do this, they first needed to find and appoint a head coach to build the program.

Enter Coach Bartlein.

Upon being commissioned to build this program, he was given essentially one year to put it all together and be ready for opening day next March. Since then, he’s been recruiting coaches and players, establishing fundamental program pieces, youth and summer training camps, and all the things it takes to run a successful team beyond just equipment and uniforms.

“We're looking to try to start putting those things in place now. That way we can both recruit and then retain some really good coaching, and then we also just give these guys a really good experience. So, they've given us the whole year, but again, I need all of that and more probably,” Bartlein said. “Once we start, we're going to be really thankful that we were able to have this year to get things rolling. It also allows us to do some things the right way the first time. Whereas if you're rushed into a year, yeah, you can do it, but then you're going to be cutting some corners. We'll still learn as we go, it's going to be a process, but I think this has been a really a good plan so far.”

First things first: Bartlein’s day 1 move after becoming the Falcon head coach was to hit the road and start recruiting.

“I accepted the job. And then the next week, I was actually already working at a recruitment camp out at Stanford University. They've been running this high school camp for many years, and players from all over come to network with coaches,” Bartlein said. “There's quite a few kids around the country that do want to come to the Midwest for many different reasons, and we’ve actually got a kid coming from that camp from the Seattle area.”

At the time, Bartlein was still living in Milwaukee and was making the drive up for about three, four days at a time where he’d do about a day in the office and then two or three days on the road, driving to games.  

As of now, Bartlein says they have about half their goal roster of 40 players and have yet to select all the coaches. A number of the coaches are confirmed, and although their contract doesn’t start until next year, they will be releasing some of those names in the next month or so.

So far, he says it’s been a very fluid process, and he’s had nothing but support from everyone he’s talked to with his overall impression from the community being optimistic. He says the time is right for this to happen with the new stadium in town, the new athletic facilities at the university and with the growth of baseball in the community since the last time the Falcons had a team. Not to mention a growing campus.

“You know, that's the vibe I've been getting. A lot of the kids that I've talked to have basically said they’ve heard baseball is coming back, and they're pretty excited about it,” Bartlein said. “We've had a number of students that have reached out and said, ‘Hey, you know, I'd be interested in coming out for the team. What does that process look like?’”

Bartlein says the surprising part is going to be how many quality athletes they pull from an existing student body that didn’t come to River Falls with the intention of playing baseball.

“Each school is a little unique in that you're always going to have a program or programs that draw kids to a school where they have to choose. And if you can get a couple of kids that had to choose a school without baseball because of a certain program, then all of a sudden now the shoe fits and now they have the ability to play,” Bartlein said. “Then, as you peel back the layers, some of them are really talented and had really good high school careers, so at this point it's a matter of finding those guys and then seeing if college baseball is a good fit.”

Coach Bartlein suspects there will be a couple guys like that, which he says is great because they know the school and are familiar with the setup, so they can step into some leadership roles on the team, at least right away.

Additionally, with baseball engrained into the fabric of surrounding communities in the metro area and on a state level, Bartlein anticipates tapping into the local talent as much as possible. Of course, there will be kids from other places because he wants a wider net within the culture of the program, but he sees the vast majority of their program being comprised of young guys from Minnesota and Wisconsin.

“It's a really good fit for both states because you got your reciprocity with Minnesota, we've got really good academic programs and a really strong connection to the Twin Cities. So, it makes a lot of sense for the kids too,” Bartlein said.

As with other UWRF sports, the Falcons baseball team will enter their conference as a Division 3 program. Contrary to what you might think, the difference between D3 and D1 isn’t size, it’s scholarships.

By definition, D3 schools like UWRF offer no scholarship money to athletes. However, Bartlein says this can be misleading because only a very small percentage of D1 athletes have full rides while the vast majority are only getting partially funded scholarships that actually cost them more than if they would have gone in-state to a UW school like River Falls.

Also, with the MLB draft shrinking in the past couple years, it’s pushing more high-end talent into the college pool than ever before, and it is changing the landscape for collegiate athletes where only a handful of D3 athletes would get signed traditionally.

“It's a possibility for kids. It’s tough to make it to the majors no matter what level you're playing at. Not every guy that plays Division 1 baseball gets drafted. Is it possible? Yeah. Do you have a lot of work in? Yeah, and the timing has to be right,” Bartlein said. “There's just a lot of things that have to line up, but the cool thing is that we've seen it happen from teams and from individuals in our league. I've had a chance to coach a few guys and play with some guys that it has happened to and hopefully we can develop some more players that it can happen to.”

Coach Bartlein says that 20-25 years ago, if you got drafted, you went. Going to college was almost a last resort.

“It was definitely not viewed as the quicker route to get there. Now, I think people are considering it differently,” Bartlein said. “If you're still a high school kid that has potential to be drafted very early, that's a lot of money, but as you start going down rounds of the draft, the college experience gets pretty lucrative. If it gets to the point where you're looking at a comparable amount of money, guys are choosing to go the college route more frequently than ever before.”

Coach Bartlein says this new influx of talent is making an impact at every level from D1 to D3 and right down to the spectator who’s seeing a high-quality product.

“Every level gets elevated. It’s more competitive, and that's good for everybody. Especially for people that like watching baseball,” Bartlein said.

These are the types of conversations they will continue to have as the program gets off the ground. For now, this spring is about watching high school games, seeing what kind of interest there is from transfer students and starting to prepare for fall ball.

“When the kids come back in September, we're going to go through a seven-week fall season where we’ll have a lot of field training and a lot of competition. Then we’ll go into like a winter strength and conditioning phase. Then you start up again after winter break, and it's about seven to eight weeks of on ramping before we get to march and we start our first games,” Bartlein said.

With all the building and preparation, you might be wondering if you have to wait until next March to catch a glimpse of the new Falcons team, and Bartlein says no.

“Looking ahead to fall next year, we'll do an inter squad scrimmage. We'll call it something by that time, maybe the Falcon World Series or something, but it’s an end of fall series. So, that's something that we'll do in October,” Bartlein said. “It will be open to spectators, it'll be something that will help the ballpark because they’re typically ending their summer inventory, and it also helps our staff here learn how to operate on game days. Plus, it gives our guys a chance to continue to compete and play in front of people.”

There’s a lot of work to be done before the team gets there, but excitement is building at UWRF where it won’t be long until the boys of summer fly the Falcon colors.