From the day she was born, Dec. 4, 1951, Rosalie Ellis Bardin was part of a team.
The ninth of 10 children, she learned how to get along, how to play and how to lead from a very young age, and more than 51 years later, she is still doing it. Along the way, she was a high school basketball star at Lucama High, an extramural volleyball and basketball standout at Atlantic Christian, and an extraordinary high school coach at Southern Nash for 25 years.
Bardin, a principal at Nash Central Middle School, is married to Tim Bardin, a former baseball star at Barton. They live in Wilson and have one son, Timothy.
Her passion for sports began at an early age. Several of her sisters played basketball and another was a cheerleader. Her official run in the sports world originated at Lucama High, where she started as point guard on the basketball team for four years, making All-Conference each season. She admired high school coaches/teachers like Hugh Flowers and Gary Ray, and then found more zeal for health and physical education by playing extramural volleyball for Marie Lewis and basketball for Carole McKeel at AC.
Bardin, who majored in Health & Physical Education and minored in Biology, graduated in three years. She was a student teacher at Wells Elementary her senior year. She signed to teach high school, but wound up with the young children.
Nicknamed “The Whistler” because she could whistle so loud, she would often confuse opponents, and the referees, when she emitted the shrill sound. “I would be the one whistling and a player would stop, then I’d grab the ball and take off.”
In volleyball, Bardin was the setter, but it was her versatility that made her such a valuable player for Coach Lewis.
Along with her coaches, Bardin’s fire to coach and teach was ignited by being associated with Barbara Smith, Kay Jeffries, Doc Sanford, Ed Cloyd, Tom Parham and others.
She fashioned the work ethic and ideals of her mentors into her own method of coaching and teaching once she joined the Southern Nash staff in the fall of 1973 as P.E. teacher (six classes), varsity girls basketball, softball and track & field coach, as well as sponsor of the cheerleading squads. Little did she know that, 30 years later, she would be revered like many of her predecessors in the coaching ranks.
From 1973-84, she coached track, softball, volleyball and basketball, achieving the rare triple crown of coaching in 1976 when she coached Eastern Carolina Conference champions in softball, track and basketball. She was named head coach of the East team in the East-West All Star Basketball game in 1984, which her team won. She then gave up track and basketball and concentrated on volleyball and softball for the rest of her SNSH tenure.
She directed her volleyball team to a conference co-championship in the 1991-92 season, earning Coach-of-the-Year honors.
Despite her success and impact in many sports, it is softball where Bardin left her legacy. During her 25 years as coach, the Ladybirds won 13 conference championships and she won 13 Coach-of-the-Year awards. In 1995, Southern Nash won the N.C. High School Athletic Association Class 3A Championship with a 25-3 record. Perhaps more impressive was that the Ladybirds made it back to the championship game the following year, despite a change from slo-pitch to fastpitch.
Year after year, Bardin kept scorebooks and batting/fielding charts on her opponents and shared that information with her players. No one ever accused her softball teams of being unprepared,
She was thrilled to become the 14th woman to be enshrined in the Barton College Athletic Hall of Fame… and to be joining many of the folks she has admired for so long, like McKeel and Smith.
