Columbus North graduate and Indiana University then-junior Cooper Trinkle bats against Purdue at Bart Kaufman Field in Bloomington during the 2020 season. Photo courtesy of Andrew Mascharka/Indiana Athletics
Submitted photo
Cooper Trinkle, Daylan Nanny and Kalib Clark played travel baseball together when they were in high school and though their paths took them to different colleges, have remained good friends.
With the college baseball careers of Trinkle and Nanny having come to a close, and with Clark’s playing career winding down, the trio wanted to stay close to the game they love. So they founded HitClub Player Development Services to help mostly high school baseball players.
“We were travel teammates in high school, but we’ve trained together ever since,” said Trinkle, a 2017 Columbus North graduate. “I think it’s something that Daylin, Caleb and I talked about when we were training. We really devoted ourselves to that. We thought we could probably be pretty good at this if we wanted to help people out. It was pretty cool how it aligned.”
Trinkle was a two-time All-State selection and was The Republic Baseball Player of the Year after leading the Bull Dogs to a regional championship in 2017. He went on to play at four colleges, spending a year each at Evansville, John A. Logan, Indiana University and St. Leo.
Nanny and Clark both are Plainfield natives. Nanny played at Arizona Western and Western Carolina, and Clark currently is playing at Mid-America Nazarene in Kansas.
“We’re trying to expose high school kids to the methods that they’ll see at the next level,” Trinkle said. “{ Now that me and Daylan aren’t playing, it makes sense to give back and help those high school players prepare for the next level. Our goal is to be able to take the training that we saw when we were in college baseball and from friends who have moved on to or in pro baseball. We want to take the training from some of the best players in the world and take that back to high schoolers.”
Trinkle has two classes and an internship left to finish his degree in sports marketing and management from IU. He and Nanny work for Prep Baseball Report with scouting and working at showcases.
Beginning today at ProXAthlete in Westfield, Trinkle and Nanny are putting on an eight-week series of individualized lessons leading into the start of the high school season. The sessions will be at ProX Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays; HIT Factory in Columbus on Thursdays and Powerhouse Athletics in Franklin on Sundays.
Players 13-and-older interested in signing up for the Thursday sessions at HIT Factory and/or the sessions in Westfield or Franklin can email [email protected] or call HIT Factory at 812-379-8593.
“It was nice that we’re able to go to a couple different locations throughout the state,” Trinkle said. “At the same time, it gives them access to a six-day-a-week program because we’re always going to be doing something.”
