Trent Bender is a native of Binghamton, New York. (Photo Courtesy: Frank Poulin)
There tends to always be the father in a family that influences their children to play sports, and the same can be said for Trent Bender, who started playing baseball when he was five years old in tee ball. Bender credits his father as the main reason he started playing baseball since he coached him when he was eight and nine years old. After taking some time away from coaching for a couple of years, his father returned to coach him on his varsity team in high school.
“It was almost harder to play for him because it felt like I was held to a higher standard since we were a good high school team, he wanted to make an example out of me by using his kid. For example, if I showed up late, I would have to do the same amount of running or maybe even more than that. It was definitely a good thing but there were sometimes where it became hard to separate life with father and son versus coach and player,” Bender explained.
Bender believes his father did a good job of not bringing baseball home and leaving it on the field. “If I had a question, he would coach me. But I am sure he had challenges with wanting to see me do well. Even if I was struggling, he’d still want to see me do well. He always did a really good job of keeping the baseball and life balance at bay,” Bender continued.
“Sports were an opportunity to share time with him, a lot is the same with being a coach and being a dad. It was something we liked and provided endless opportunities to learn new life lessons,” Bender’s father,Jim Bender, explained.
Bender would best describe himself as a player with a win-first mindset no matter what. His approach at the plate in high school was to get on base in any fashion so he could play to his strength, which was stealing bases. Bender played a mixture of middle infield and outfield at the high school level.
When it came time for Bender to decide if he wanted to continue playing baseball at the collegiate level, he was hesitant at first due to losing a year during his junior season because of the COVID-19 Pandemic. “Losing the year during COVID almost made me lose the love for the game, but once we started to pick things back up senior year, I wasn’t ready to give it up,” Bender described.
Bender chose to attend Dean College for baseball due in large part to his grandfather, Gary Scutt, having played football at Dean (class of 1969) and was the football head coach from 1975-1977, when it was still a junior college. Bender wanted to attend the same place that his grandfather attended so he could make him proud and watch him play at the same level he did. It also helped that Bender has friends that live nearby, which makes it feel like a home away from home.
Bender, being from Binghamton, New York, grew up trying to model his game after Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees. Bender has always worn number two in honor of Jeter.
Bender enters this season coming off missing last season due to a knee injury that required surgery. While the team is young this season, Bender thinks that it is to their advantage since their opponents are unfamiliar with them. Bender explained that the team's goal this year is to win the conference tournament, and on a personal level, he just wants to perform well.
“I just want to perform well and have confidence in myself and all the work I put in to get back to be able to play from the knee surgery. Also, stay away from the numerical goals because otherwise, you will beat yourself up over it if you only focus on them.”
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