Trinity turns to former coach Whittle to lead baseball team in 2024

Ken Whittle is back as the Trinity baseball coach, at least temporarily, after Jarrod Cook took a job at Lee-Scott Academy. (Tim Gayle)

By TIM GAYLE

When Ken Whittle retired as Trinity’s baseball coach after the 2021 season, he had no idea that he would be lured out of retirement to coach the Wildcats one more time.

As the Hall of Fame coach makes one last curtain call this spring, there are some subtle changes that accompany this year’s edition of the Wildcats. 

The group of assistant coaches helping Whittle in 2021 are gone, with Ronnie Elmore retiring, Brad Parker moving from Trinity to Montgomery Academy and Jarrod Cook -- who was promoted to head coach -- leaving the Wildcats for Lee-Scott Academy.

Cook’s departure, at the end of the summer, left Trinity administrators in a quandary concerning the bad timing of trying to hire a coach at the beginning of a school year, so they coaxed Whittle into returning to the field for this season before launching a search for the next Trinity baseball coach.

The first thing he had to do is find assistant coaches to join him and Jon Shamburger, who remained as an assistant. Chad Mansmann, hired from Marbury to help assist Cook as well as coach receivers and defensive backs on the football team, was the first assistant. Whittle would later add Phillip Morgan, an assistant with years of experience in south Alabama.

“I was told when I came back I could get anybody I wanted and I’ve got two of the best,” Whittle said. “And Carter Clark is helping with the pitchers. They’ve made it fun, these two guys here. We’ve done some things differently, we’ve done some things he (Mansmann) likes, we’ve implemented some old stuff and we’ve kind of blended some stuff. When I started (coaching in the 1980s), it was me. I didn’t have anybody. Then I added Dann Cleveland, then Barry Loyal. All of a sudden, I’ve got more coaches than football. But I felt like I needed some guys to kick it along a little bit.”

The first thing fans would notice is that Whittle, a fixture in the third-base coaching box for more than 40 years, is sitting in the dugout. Mansmann is now coaching third base for the Wildcats.

“I get to stand back in the dugout (and watch),” Whittle said. “He’s learned some things that the old guy here didn’t learn. And he picks things up on pitchers’ movements. He sees things. So does Phillip. He sees it better than I do. He’s a lot more knowledgeable than me. I’m jealous.

“We were laughing the other day. I said, ‘We’re bunting, right?’ And he said, ‘I wanted to make sure I had permission to do that.’

But don’t let Whittle fool you. He may not be out there on the stage, but his fingerprints are all over the product.

“You may not see it as much, but yes,” said Trinity junior Fleming Hall. “He may not raise his voice as much. I would say he’s more personal this year. But he’s definitely in it as much as he has been.

“It’s obviously still the same Trinity standard. All of us want to win, all of us want to play at a high level. There were different things with Coach Cook, but they were good things. Coach Whittle has been around, he knows the game, he knows what to do. He’s obviously got the best plan for us. I believe in his plan for us.”

The guy in the third-base coaching box has a unique position this year -- try to stay on the same page with the veteran coach and his high standards while auditioning for the role as head coach of the 2025 Wildcats.  

“I told him this year my plan is to be very aggressive,” Mansmann said. “I said we’re going to be very aggressive early because I feel like it’ll be easier to slow them down in games that matter later on in the year than it would be to speed them up. He’s been 100 percent behind me. Now, it’s cost me a couple of times and I’m sure I’ve gotten some people upset with how we do things but I’ve got him on my side.”

Mansmann has been surrounded by some of the best baseball coaches in the state throughout his career, playing for Bobby Carr at Edgewood Academy, then for Steve Helms at Lurleen B. Wallace Community College, then for Q.V. Lowe at AUM and now with Whittle.

“It’s really been a blessing,” Mansmann said. “I’ve been very fortunate in my baseball career to be around really, really good coaches. Hopefully, I take a little bit from each and every one of them. (Whittle) is very humble. I’ve been enjoying my time with him.”

Whittle, meanwhile, said this year’s journey has been fun and enjoyable. After retiring with 783 wins, he now has six this season and is closing in on 800 career wins, a milestone that only six other coaches in Alabama High School Athletic Association history have ever reached.

 “I wish I could go back 20, but I’m not going back,” Whittle said. “This is it. I’m just holding the rope until they find who they want to find.”

In the meantime, the standard is the standard. He created it. Even if this year has a different feel to it, Whittle can’t run from the standard he created.

“These guys are competitors,” Whittle said. “I can’t not be a competitor. I still don’t sleep, I still worry about decisions, I still get mad. But it’s not about me, it’s about us and sometimes I think it’s about me. My wife reminds me it’s not about me.”