Bartow began his coaching at the prep level in Missouri, coaching Shelbina and St. Charles High School basketball squads to a 145–39 win-loss mark in six seasons. His 1957 St. Charles team won the state championship, defeating North Kansas City in the Class L finals by a score of 60–54.
Bartow left his position to succeed John Wooden as the head coach of UCLA. Bartow coached at UCLA from 1975 to 1977, guiding them to a 52–9 record, including a berth in the 1976 Final Four. He coached the 1977 College Player of the Year, Marques Johnson. As of 2008, he is the second winningest coach at UCLA by percentage of wins to losses at .852, putting him behind Gary Cunningham at .862 and above John Wooden at .808.
Bartow left UCLA after the 1977 season to take over the job of creating an athletic program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, more commonly known as UAB. He served as the school's first head basketball coach and athletic director for 18 years. Bartow led UAB to the NIT in the program's second year of existence, and followed that up with seven straight NCAA Tournament appearances, including trips to the Sweet 16 in 1981 and the Elite Eight in 1982.
Bartow retired from coaching in 1996, and in 1997, UAB renamed its basketball venue, Bartow Arena, in his honor. His son Murry, a UAB assistant, became the coach upon Bartow's retirement; Bartow was later president of Hoops, LP, the company that runs the Memphis Grizzlies and the FedEx Forum.[5]
On April 15, 2009, a UAB spokesman revealed that Bartow had been diagnosed with stomach cancer.[6] On January 3, 2012, Gene Bartow died at his home in Birmingham after a two-year battle with the disease.[7]
Bartow's aggressiveness towards developing the UAB athletics program led to controversy. In 1991, Bartow wrote a letter to NCAA officials after four UAB transfers from the University of Alabama's Tuscaloosa campus reported NCAA violations that happened on the Tuscaloosa campus. The letter also charged Paul Bryant, Sr., the deceased football coach, with violations also. While the letter was later retracted, Bartow's letter brought the ire of the University of Alabama System's Board of Trustees, of which Bryant's son was a member. Also in 1991, the school had expanded to add football at the I-AA level, and moved to I-A in 1996.
The anger of the younger Bryant against Bartow was well-known, and it was said that Bryant, who later became Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the entire system, was intentionally sabotaging the Birmingham campus. In 2006, the Blazers' football program had plans to hire LSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher as head coach. The Board of Trustees, led by Bryant, rejected the deal. In 2011, the Blazers had plans to build an on-campus stadium to replace aging Legion Field. That was rejected by the Board of Trustees. Bryant, who had to retire by 2015 because of policy that mandated retirement from the Board at 70, was said to have led a vendetta against Bartow's legacy. The Blazers dropped football at the end of the 2014 season, which many at the Birmingham campus attributed to the younger Bryant's vendetta against Bartow.
National champion Postseason invitational champion Conference regular season champion Conference regular season and conference tournament champion Division regular season champion Division regular season and conference tournament champion Conference tournament champion