WOODINVILLE, WA— Phil Bartlow passed away over the weekend after battling Leukemia for over a year. He was 47 years old.

goalWA.net was first introduced to Phil back in 2011 when we featured a story on Soccer First Indoor Sports in Arlington. Phil took over the place and made many improvements.

Then in August of 2012 Bartlow took the plunge and joined the Premier Arena Soccer League to give adult elite male players a team to play on in Arlington. We helped the new club by running a Name the Team contest. The eventual winner was “Arlington Aviators.”

goalWA covered Phil’s Aviators through the years, including their historic first-ever win on December 9, 2012. “Our first-ever win is against the WSA Rapids, a team that we respect highly and want to achieve the amount of success that they have. Amazing!” said a happy Arlington coach Bartlow at the time.

Phil looked back on his first year with the Aviators in this story.

Then in February of 2014 Phil announced that Soccer First Indoor Sports was going up for sale. “An indoor sports facility is a great place to go to work every day,” Bartlow told goalWA.net at the time. “Unfortunately, three surgeries in the last 14 months have ended my playing career and watching the teams and friends I used to play with is incredibly difficult. I am also returning to coaching, something I quit doing when I bought Soccer First because I didn’t have time to do both, and have realized how much I missed working with players and helping them to get better.”

While we got to know Phil strictly through indoor soccer, many in the rest of Snohomish County knew him from his time on the coaching staffs at Cascade High School, The Overlake School, and Snohomish United.

The entire Bartlow family are or have been involved with soccer, including Phil’s wife Amy (FC Alliance) and sons Ethan (Crossfire) and Ryan.

News of Phil’s passing spread quickly on Facebook with many heartfelt tributes to him. In his short 47 years of life Bartlow managed to touch scores of lives and make a big contribution to soccer in Snohomish County. He will be greatly missed.