Aztecs’ Trenkle to Step Down
San Diego State Coach Fred Trenkle, whose team is 2-20, will resign at the end of the season, Athletic Director Rick Bay said Friday.
Trenkle told Bay of his decision Thursday night via phone from Salt Lake City after the Aztecs absorbed their worst loss ever, 86-38 to No. 14 Utah.
Speculation on a replacement centered on Utah’s Rick Majerus and Rhode Island’s Jim Harrick. When Bay was athletic director at Ohio State, he once interviewed Harrick, then at Pepperdine, for the Buckeyes’ head coaching job.
“This development was not totally unexpected,” Bay said. He said he and Trenkle had a “pretty emotional meeting” Tuesday morning, the day after an 85-60 loss to No. 25 New Mexico.
“I began the conversation by saying I thought it was time that I consider the possibility of reassigning him,” Bay said. “He interrupted me by saying he didn’t want to go into it. He said he felt very much that this was the time for him to step down and relinquish his head coaching responsibilities.”
Bay said San Diego State will attempt to settle the year remaining on Trenkle’s contract.
Trenkle is 53-81 in his five years at San Diego State. The team is 0-10 in the Western Athletic Conference. Trenkle had only one winning season, when the Aztecs went 15-14 in 1995-96.
As for Majerus, Bay said, “I don’t know to what degree he might be interested in this job.
“I haven’t asked for permission yet to talk with him, which I must do,” he said. When asked if he would, Bay said: “I may very well, yes.”
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The NCAA agreed that Elizabethtown became the first women’s college basketball team to win 800 games after a discrepancy with record books.
Division III Elizabethtown reached the milestone Thursday after defeating Western Maryland, 68-49, NCAA statistician Jenifer Scheibler said. NCAA records had showed that the Blue Jays only had 796 victories.
But after recounting the wins in the program’s 71-year history, Elizabethtown (19-2) found that their 19th win this season would be their 800th, a claim the NCAA accepts.