NJC promotes Eddie Trenkle to athletic director in Sterling

Northeastern Junior College put a longtime Plainsmen figure in charge of its athletics operation, promoting Eddie Trenkle to athletic director and signaling that recruiting, scheduling and campus sports leadership will stay in familiar hands in Sterling.

The move, announced May 26, places Trenkle over an athletics department that fields 10 varsity NJCAA Division I teams and helps anchor one of Sterling’s most visible public institutions. For Logan County athletes, parents and boosters, the change matters because the athletic director’s office helps shape who comes to campus, how teams are supported and how NJC presents itself to the community.

Trenkle is hardly new to that world. NJC’s biography says he has been part of Plainsmen athletics for years and became head coach of the men’s basketball program in 2006. In his first season, the school says he led Northeastern to a Region IX championship and a seventh-place finish at the national tournament, a fast start that helped establish his standing on campus.

His record has only deepened since then. A 2014 NJC recap said the Plainsmen last won the Region IX tournament title in 2007, Trenkle’s first year as head coach. A Feb. 3, 2025, NJC story said he reached his 350th career win on Jan. 31, 2025, underscoring the length of his run in Sterling.

The promotion also reaches beyond basketball. NJC describes itself as the largest residential two-year college in Colorado, with six residence halls, more than 575 residence-hall beds, 900 full-time students and more than 2,000 part-time students. Its Bank of Colorado Event Center is more than 62,000 square feet and serves both athletics and community events, which gives the athletic director role a wider footprint across campus and into the community.

Trenkle’s background suggests the college wanted continuity at the top. NJC says he came to Northeastern from Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas, where his teams reached the Division II national tournament twice and were ranked No. 1 nationally in his final season. NJC’s staff directory already listed him as Athletic and Event Center Director, indicating the promotion formalizes responsibilities he was already helping manage.

The college has also seen its basketball culture extend across generations. NJC biography material says Bronson Moton played for Trenkle from 2012 to 2014 before later returning as a coach, a sign of how deeply Trenkle has been woven into the program’s internal pipeline. For NJC, the promotion keeps a proven administrator and coach at the center of an athletics department that reaches far beyond one team.