Glatch retires from wheelchair hoop coaching
EDINBORO — Jim Glatch took a while to get there.
But once he arrived, the 1979 Butler graduate discovered he found his niche — coaching wheelchair basketball.
Glatch, 62, recently announced his retirement as Edinboro University’s wheelchair basketball coach after 29 seasons. His tenure there included serving as director of Team USA’s Senior National Program for four years. Included in that stint was guiding Team USA’s U-23 team to the gold medal in the 2009 IWBF World Championships in Paris.
“I’ll always appreciate those opportunities to coach in international games,.” Glatch said. “We took the bronze medal at the Paralympics (2012) in London. I generated most of my opportunities through networking, picking people’s brains, doing things the right way.”
Glatch had designs on playing football in high school, but concussions incurred during his younger years in the sport derailed such plans. He played college baseball at Pitt-Bradford.
“I never played for the Butler high school (baseball) team because it was so hard to make the team in those days,” he recalled. “But I did play summer ball. I love sports.”
He just never thought he’d get into coaching.
Glatch’s first job was at the Meadville Medical Center, where he did some work in a group home. He later became an event manager with Pa. Special Olympics, doing some training in helping people get into adaptive sports.
“After a few years there, I saw Edinboro had an opening for a wheelchair basketball coach,” Glatch said. “I interviewed and got the job.”
Then he went to work educating himself.
Glatch attended a summer wheelchair basketball camp at Ball State University “and the top coaches in the country were there,” he said. “My first year on the job, I made a lot of connections with those coaches. The Canadian national team coach was also the head coach at Illinois. I got to know him well.”
Besides Edinboro, only 11 universities in the United States offer wheelchair basketball. They include Wisconsin-Whitewater, Alabama, Arizona, Auburn, Illinois, Eastern Washington, Texas-Arlington, CUNY, Nebraska, Missouri and Southwest Minnesota State.
Wheelchair players do not have to be paralyzed, but must possess some type of extremity disability preventing them from participating in mainstream athletics.
“We had some good players,” Glatch said. “They all worked hard and that league is extremely competitive.”
The year Glatch coached the U-23 team to gold with an 8-0 record, former Edinboro players Tommie Gray and Trevon Jenifer were on the squad.
Glatch coached 19 All-Americans and 15 Academic All-Americans during his tenure at Edinboro. He also had four All-Rookie players and three CID Sportsmanship Award winners.
He recently accepted the position of Executive Director of the Crawford County Drug and Alcohol Commission.
“I’ve worked in the mental health field and this is a return to that,” Glatch said. “The hard part was telling my team I was leaving. There are multiple alumni interested in the position.
“Whoever gets the job, I’m hoping it’s someone I’ve coached at Edinboro, someone who understands the culture and family atmosphere we’ve built there, so that can continue.”
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