“It was a good working relationship,” said Hower. “The best thing was that we had that continuity. He knew what I wanted. We were on the same page. He really emphasized defense. Our philosophies were the same. He supported what I did. He tried to get the kids ready for me.

 “He understood the game,” Hower continued. “He knew at the seventh- and eighth-grade levels what they needed. The kids loved him. He gave constructive criticism. They listened to him. They wanted to play for him.”

 After leaving St. Mary’s/Our Lady of the Valley, Middleton assisted head coach Peg Kauffman with the Lebanon Valley College women’s basketball program in the early 1990s. Middleton also served as the Northern Lebanon girls’ basketball head coach for a short time, beginning in 1994, and helped bring AAU basketball to Lebanon County, in the form of the ‘Millenium Mills’, in the early 2000s.

 “He was the head coach at Northern Lebanon for a short period,” said Hower. “I don’t know why he didn’t spend more time as a head coach. Maybe he related better to the younger kids.

 “He would use the word ‘fundamentals’ all the time,” added Hower. “That was his big thing. He was into it.”

 Middleton was also a fan of the game. More recently, he became a fixture at local scholastic and collegiate games, perched on the front row of the bleachers, at mid-court, on the opposite side of the team benches.

 “I couldn’t come up with a number on the lives he touched,” said Hower. “On the CYO level, almost everyone in the school plays CYO basketball. He impacted a lot of the girls who went through Lebanon Catholic. He was just a great person.”

 In addition to the fundamentals, Middleton also stressed sportsmanship, team work and the importance of academics. As a person, he was loyal, down-to-earth and a bit of a character.

 “He always had other people’s best interests at heart,” said Hower. “He loved to talk, and not just about basketball. He was a very Catholic person, which is something we wanted. He was well-rounded. He liked other sports. And he followed the careers of his former players.

 “If you went to games, you’d see Charlie a lot of the times,” Hower added. “We’ll miss seeing him around. He was always sitting in the front row.”

 In 2007, Middleton and his wife Susie founded a successful golf outing to benefit the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church, where he was a parishoner.