Les Barton, 2012

Section 1, Pine Plain High School

 

After graduating from Ithaca College in 1939, Les Barton came to Pine Plains to teach and coach. In 1942, he left Pine Plains to serve his country during World War II, achieved the rank of major, and was the Headquarters Commandant of the 13th Armored Division in George S. Patton’s 3rd Army. The basketball teams coached by Les Barton between 1939 and 1966 won 380 games while losing only 89 games, an eighty percent winning percentage. His basketball teams won 17 league titles, 10 county championships and 6 Section 1 titles. His football teams from 1950-­‐1963 went undefeated six times and won fourteen consecutive games during the 1962-­‐1963 seasons. Coach Barton’s baseball teams from 1939-­‐1968 won twenty-­‐one league and county championships. He started the Pine Plains Little League program and served as Little League coach for 16 years. Coach Barton is a member of the Ithaca College Sports Wall of Fame, the Dutchess County Sports Wall of Fame, and was the initial inductee onto the Pine Plains Sports Wall of Fame.