Michael Barta has always had a love for baseball, and has been the foundation of Johnston baseball for two decades,  but following the conclusion of the 24’- 25’ season, he  is taking that love for baseball to a new program at Kuemper Catholic High School in Carroll, Iowa.

“I’ll miss [Johnston] baseball a lot. I think the community really supports baseball, andI think that’s big. I think we’ve had the opportunity to have a lot of good parents and kids come through here that have really bought into the way we do things, and it’s led to our success and I’m gonna miss the culture that is built here right now… Hopefully, we can create a culture along the same lines up at Kemper,” Barta said.

Barta grew up in Carroll, Iowa and attended Kemper. While he was in college, he applied for the head coaching job at Kemper, but didn’t get it because he was too young.

“There was a former assistant there who was really a really great assistant who got the job, but I didn’t get the job. It’s really the only job I haven’t got in my life,” Barta said.

He started as an assistant coach in 2009 before becoming the head coach in 2011.

“I was the assistant for [under] Coach Posegate, who was literally so good to his players… [He] really made me aware of trying to take care of my players, and so I thought that was a very good experience and I got the [head coaching] job in 2011,” Barta said.

Barta has always wanted to move back to Carroll and raise his family there, and said his family is ready for a little bit of a change.

“I always wanted to get back there and raise my family there because I think it’s just a phenomenal place to raise a family. But we’ve also had a number of things in our own personal lives, meaning my family that has led us just to need a little bit of a change, a little bit of a reset, and we have a ton of family there. I probably have 50 or so family [members] that live in Carroll, and so it’s gonna be really fun to be closer to family, live a quieter life and a simpler life, but still have the opportunity to coach baseball in a school that I absolutely love because I went there,” Barta said.

During the 2024 season, Barta hit an incredible coaching milestone reaching 400 career wins in a 15-11 win against the Ankeny Hawks. Barta said he isn’t interested in the numbers; he wants to make a positive environment with a lasting impact on players.

“I don’t have any goal to win a certain amount of games where some coaches would. I think the goal is, can you walk away as a coach and know [that] 90 to 95% of your players enjoyed their experience, and you made a lasting impact in their life,” Barta said. “And if you did that, I think we did it right as coaches, and, I think that’s the ultimate goal.”

Barta’s method of valuing the players over the wins has paid off, with over 130 players on average a year trying out for baseball.

“ …if you try to make the person better where they consistently can choose right over wrong, you end up with a practice environment that is really, really good because their decisions are good at practice. They always choose the right thing to do, the right amount of reps. And through that good practice, you suddenly start winning. And winning is a result of building the character and the relationships you make,” Barta stated.

Barta can pinpoint his favorite memory. It isn’t about the five state titles he’s won, it’s a game in 2014 versus Urbandale.

“We only had four seniors, and we had won state in 2013. We graduated almost our whole team. We came back with four seniors and a large group of juniors, and we upset Urbandale to go to state in 2014 at Urbandale,”

Barta remembers all the weird things that happened during this game and recalls the incredible atmosphere that it felt like everyone who was from Johnston and Urbandale was there.

“…The game was just amazing. We were down six going into the last inning. We started to come back. The lights went off. They tried to get them back on. A couple didn’t come back. Then we completed our comeback. I think everybody who was at Johnston and Urbandale was there. It was probably the biggest crowd we’ve ever played in front of, and it was a substate final to go to the state tournament. We ended up beating Urbandale, and it’s probably the environment, the way we played, that defined the teams that I had hoped to coach when I got the job,” Barta said.

It is important to mention the state titles that Barta has won while coaching here at Johnston. Barta says it’s not all because of him, but because of the coaching staff he coaches aside and the community’s continued support to the Johnston Baseball program.

“We did have the opportunity to win five titles, which are all great memories… I have the title as head coach, but, realistically, if you don’t have phenomenal assistance around you, your assistance a lot of times is the guys digging in certain areas of the game, researching, and so on, like we’ve built that here. Since the first year I came in, we’ve put really good people in the program. We’ve had the opportunity to have a lot of good parents and kids come through here that have really bought into the way we do things and it’s led to our success. I’m gonna miss the culture that is built here right now. And, hopefully, we can create a culture along the same lines up at Kemper,” Barta said.

Barta can pinpoint one thing he won’t miss doing: handing out the jerseys that make up the varsity team.

“I hate making lineups. You usually are by the time you’re at the end of your summer, you’re usually in a locker room of a couple dozen guys or more, maybe three dozen guys,and all of them are usually at that point working really hard, completely invested in the program, maybe playing their best baseball of the year, and you can only play nine… and so you’re leaving guys off the lineup that you secretly love, and you love the way they work, the way they act, the type of people they are. But you can only put nine in the lineup, and you gotta play your best nine at this level in the league we play in,” Barta said.

Barta’s passion for coaching teens extends from the field to his classroom, and his love for teaching shows with roughly 170 of students signing up for his classes each year. His goal is to help students get over academic hurdles.

“You’re trying to honestly keep kids motivated, relate things to real life, and try to get them to work and not have excuses for why they can’t perform at a high level. They’re all capable. They just need to apply themselves. And a lot of people will say, well, a player or a student has a certain hurdle in their way. Well, let’s find a way to get over it,” Barta said.

Barta’s coworkers can describe Barta in one word: energy.

“Sometimes I hear him through the wall yelling about accounting concepts that no one should really get that excited about, but he does. He just brings the energy,” Kayla Bousum, a colleague of Barta said

Barta will also be teaching at Kuemper Catholic High School, but during his time at Johnston, Barta has taught a range of business classes.

“I started to run Dragon TV…  We tried to bring any happenings within the school, put it on TV for kids to watch, and it kinda connected our school. I kinda graduated out of that and ended up teaching nothing but accounting nowadays. I love accounting. It’s very black and white. You either do it, do it great or you don’t get it, and there’s no gray area and I love that. I think it makes teaching easier honestly for me. I love the detail and organization it takes to do accounting as I’m kind of an organized guy that loves detail. So, yeah, it’s just been a really good experience teaching here with a really good department,” Barta said.

Although Barta is uncertain of what he will be teaching at Kuemper Catholic High School, he hopes that he will be able to continue teaching something he is familiar with.

“I don’t know what I’ll be teaching in the next step, hopefully, something [it’s] like some of the classes I’ve had the opportunity to teach at Johnston,” Barta stated.