July 14, 2006

The question was a bit of a softball for Eddie Trenkle Wednesday, his first official day as the head coach of the Northeastern Junior College men's basketball team.

Trenkle's answer came easy and obviously as he looked around the auxiliary gyms at the Bank of Colorado Event Center and motioned flippantly with his meaty hands toward the ceiling.

"This whole building," he said. "This is the biggest difference. This thing sells itself to recruits."

The building didn't exist during Trenkle's first go-round with the Plainsmen as a point guard during the 1997-98 season. That year the event center was being built. Meanwhile, Northeastern's old gym, Jackson Hall, had already been demolished.

Trenkle's only year with the Plainsmen featured countless 6 a.m. practices and only nine home games, each played at Sterling High School. That team went on to win 18 games and fall on a last-second shot in the Region IX semifinals.

Like so many other players associated with Northeastern Junior College, Trenkle left the school wanting to come back. When the head coaching job opened up in May, he was one of 35 candidates to apply. He had a nice gig as an assistant coach at Division II Fort Hays State University in Kansas, but the urge to be a head coach at a place he held near to his heart was pulling him back west.

Before marveling at the event center Wednesday, Trenkle sat in his new office on the building's second floor. The nameplate above the door read "Brian Joyce," Trenkle's predecessor.

"I guess I'll have to order one," Trenkle said.

It was about 4 p.m., nearing the end of first day without a grace period. Trenkle spent the day on the phone, trying to find more players, trying to keep up with his current ones.

"Sometimes when you spend a day with the phone to your ear," he said, "you have to take a break."

The new coach had an aura about him. He looked almost like one of Northeastern's students. He had close cropped golden-brown hair over a face that, at 31, still isn't showing the first sign of aging. He wore a baby blue striped polo shirt and khaki shorts.

He looked young and vibrant, enthusiastic to begin what he hopes will be a long and successful marriage to Northeastern.

The only player on Northeastern's roster that Trenkle has met in person is sophomore guard Shane Gertner. The Sterling native was refereeing a summer-league game Tuesday when Trenkle, fresh off a drive to Sterling from Fort Hays, introduced himself.

"He looked so young," Gertner said. "I think that will be good. Everyone will be able to relate with him, so I am excited. He will be easy to talk to. If we have problems he seems very open minded. He is an easy guy to approach."

Trenkle is three years older than Joyce was when he took over the head coaching job.

After watching the summer league games, Trenkle came away impressed.

"There will be kids coming through this area that will be good enough to play at this level," he said. "I thought were a couple of kids from Sterling with positive attributes."

He then retired to the dorm room he is calling home for the moment. While Trenkle's wife and children remain in Fort Hays until their house is sold, the patriarch had to begin his quest for a national championship.

And that is where Trenkle wants to take Northeastern. He understands the goal he's set. But, then, someone has to win it every year, right?

"I know only one team a year gets to win it," he said. "It's a high, lofty goal and you have to reach the stars to get there. But that's my main goal: to be the team that wins the last game of the season."

That quest begins, for Trenkle, on the recruiting trail. He's got enough scholarship money to add two players - ideally a center/forward and a guard - before school begins. Even in mid July, when the top recruits seem to be snatched up, Trenkle knows he can find gold if he pans enough.

"You have to get dirty this time of year," he said. "You can find them, though. I have names right now. I have kids trying to qualify academically."

The first major stop on the recruiting trail will be at the end of the month, when Trenkle takes the Plainsmen to a junior college team camp. There, he will try to find the unattached players looking for a late scholarship.

Trenkle looks at Northeastern as a destination instead of just part of his coaching journey. Yes, he is a young coach who found great success the last four years at Fort Hays. Yes, any success at Northeastern could mean opportunities for a Division I assistant job. But Trenkle isn't built that way. His father, Fred, won an NJCAA national championship at the College of Southern Idaho in 1987. A few years later he moved up to Division I as the head coach at San Diego State University.

Fred was fired from that job. Wednesday, Trenkle reflected on a night spent in Northeastern's dorms, with no air conditioning and a cramped space that he shared with no one else.

"That brought me back to my glory days," he said.

And he hopes that feeling never ends.

Dan Nied can be reached at 522-1990, Ext. 232 or by e-mail at: dnied@journal-advocate.com