There are four state championship banners hanging in the Trenton High School gym. The most recent was hung by the boys track and field team in 2008 – a team coached by Wes Croy.
Trenton’s state championship-winning track and field coach left that position after the 2014 season before becoming the school’s athletic director – a position he still serves to this day.
On Tuesday night, the Trenton R-9 School Board allowed Croy to return to coaching the boys track and field team after current coach Lysander Overstreet left for a position at Raymore-Peculiar.
“It’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing,” Croy said of coaching track. “When the opportunity came up with Coach Overstreet leaving, it was something I was interested in. We want to do what we can to keep our program strong, keep our numbers up and be competitive every time we step out on the track.”
Croy coached the Trenton boys track and field team from 2006 to 2014. During his first run as Trenton’s track coach, the Bulldogs won four district titles in addition to the state championship and, at one point, Trenton had a 27-meet winning streak in regular season events.
The move to hire Croy marked the lone coaching change for Trenton’s spring sports, giving the school some much-needed normalcy after a tumultuous overhaul of the fall and winter sports coaching assignments earlier this year. Travis Mullenix returns as the school’s boys golf coach, Joel Hultman returns to head the baseball program, David Sager is back to lead the boys tennis team and Chris Parks will once again head up the girls track and field program. Parks is currently the longest tenured varsity head coach at Trenton, having guided the Trenton girls track team continuously since the 2002 season.
“Stability is really important for us right now,” Croy said. “It’s been a year where we’ve had a lot of turnover. I think we have done a really good job of finding quality people to fill the spots that we had open and I’m excited about every coaching hire that we have made. But I also think that there are a lot of positives that, in the spring, our kids know who their coaches are. They don’t have to get used to someone new during those seasons.”
Trenton also rounded out the assistant coaching positions at the high school and wrapped up hires for the middle school coaching positions as well. Currently, the lone coaching position left to be filled at Trenton is a fourth assistant coach for football, which is expected to be addressed at the next board of education meeting.
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