Courtesy onu.edu
Ohio Northern athletic director Tom Simmons announced yesterday that Justin Bergman will not return in 2012. Bergman, in the midst of finishing up the 2011 campaign today against John Carroll, will complete his sixth season in Ada without a trip to the OAC tournament to his credit. But this goes deeper than that.
According to ONU’s release, Bergman has a 99-130 record overall. There were some bad years early, but two straight winning seasons seemed to be a good thing. But at a school like Northern, that’s simply not going to cut it. ONU is one of the “haves” in the OAC. The schools that have the money, the facilities and the desire to compete for conference titles across the board. This is a school whose worst finish in any sport this year is 4th place (basketball). In baseball they will finish 9th at best.
ONU has secured five consecutive mens’ All-Sports trophies heading into this year. They lead again this year. With golf and track titles this spring, Mount Union has closed the gap and baseball, which finishes last, could prove to be the difference this year.
This is not to say that I think the powers that be in Ada are delusional enough to think that they should be on Marietta or Heidelberg’s level over night, but they probably certainly expect to be consistently in the top half of the conference and making regular conference tournament appearances by now. It would be foolish to think that ONU isn’t looking at Heidelberg and asking “Why can they do it, but we can’t?” Well, the short answer is Matt Palm. I think this move has less to do with Justin Bergman’s ability as a coach and more to do with Northern’s expectations. And for the record, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. The Polar Bears have a proud athletic tradition. They expect and demand a high level of performance form their programs. That’s admirable. But if those are the expectations then this is the result.
Justin Bergman will land on his feet. The program had some low times during his tenure, but last season seemed to signal some positive movement. This season saw a slide back, but a closer look shows us how close the Bears were to another solid season. They lost five OAC games by one run this season. That stings. But that’s baseball. At ONU, baseball needs to be consistently better and so the search begins for the next Northern coach.
Filed under: Division III
As I mentioned above, baseball could prove to be the difference in the All Sports standings. It did. Mount won the All Sports trophy 80.5-79.5 after ONU garnered only 1 point for finishing last in baseball. Mount had 7.25 points in baseball.
In the 11 mens sports ONU had three OAC titles, four runner-up finishes, a 3rd place and a couple 4th places. And 10th in baseball. That’s just not going to fly in Ada.