IUPUC baseball player Trey Johnson, left, stands next to head coach Scott Bickel as they watch batting practice at the Hitting Lodge on Washington Street in Columbus, Ind., Friday, Feb. 3, 2023.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Trey Johnson thought he might be done with baseball.
After spending two years with little playing time at Purdue Northwest, the 2020 Hauser graduate was ready to hang up his cleats. He had a good-paying job as a welder last summer, and he wasn’t even sure he’d finish college.
“I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to play ball at all or go to school at all,” Johnson said. “I was welding. I had a really good job, making good money, honest money. So I thought I had it pretty good, and I spoke with my family about it quite often.”
The more they talked about it, the more he realized he wasn’t ready to give up the sport he had played since he was a kid. He had heard about the start-up program at IUPUC and thought it might sound interesting.
So Johnson reached out to IUPUC coach Scott Bickel. But because Johnson was still on the roster at Purdue Northwest, Bickel couldn’t talk to him.
“I knew I didn’t want to go back to PNW just on the simple fact that it was not a very good fit for myself,” Johnson said. “The people weren’t very nice around there. They weren’t who I was used to, most other people where I grew up. So I didn’t want to go back there, and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to go to school anywhere. But something happened, and I wasn’t ready to hang my spikes up just yet.”
Johnson was able to secure his release from PNW, a Division II school which finished second in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference last season.
“I didn’t enjoy it, really,” Johnson said. “I’m a small-town kid. I went up there, and it’s like five minutes, 10 minutes from Chicago, really not my thing. I’m a real small-town kid, so I left after two years there.”
“I knew I didn’t really want to go back to Purdue Northwest,” he added. “I met a girl (soccer player Amanda Logan) there, and that was the only thing that was really keeping there because we had something that was very special. I credit her a lot to me being successful now and who I am.”
Once he secured the release from PNW, Johnson was able to connect with Bickel about attending IUPUC and playing for the Crimson Pride.
“I was pondering the idea of whether or not to come back to school and continue playing baseball or just continue working because I had a good job,” Johnson said. “About two weeks before classes started, I finally made up my mind. I wasn’t ready to hang up my spikes yet. I gave Bickel a call and said, ‘Hey man, I know you don’t know who I am. You know who my brother (Koby, a freshman player at Indiana Tech) is, I think, but I’d like to join the program.’ They’ve been nothing but open arms and let me in.”
“He was at that breaking point where he wasn’t sure if he was going to play,” Bickel added. “He wasn’t getting a ton of time at Purdue Northwest. It’s a little further away from his family. I think part of it was deciding what he wants to be when he grows up. I think he loves it here.”
After a slow start to the season, going 0 for 8 in his first five games, Johnson went 3 for 8 with a double and three RBIs in Saturday’s doubleheader at Marian.
Johnson has three stolen bases in four attempts this season for IUPUC (1-6). He also has pitched 3.2 innings, allowing three earned runs, but has picked off three runners.
“Trey is a big piece of our team,” Bickel said. “He has a leadership presence about him. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know his family and learning about his history in high school. He was a very successful high school player. I haven’t met one person that didn’t speak highly of Trey’s character. He’s a great kid and a great teammate and loves his family.”
Johnson is happy to be back home playing the game he loves.
“I’m very grateful for the opportunity to enjoy playing baseball again because those first two years, I didn’t,” Johnson said. “When you get up to that level, it’s pretty legit. It’s like a job, not to say anything like that doesn’t go on here, because we take our job very serious. Coaches take their jobs very serious. To be around a great group of guys being led by a great head coach, a great AD (Zach McClellan), it’s been wonderful, so I’m grateful.”
