BELLINGHAM, Wash. --- On June 5, 1960, Western Washington College of Education's (now Western Washington University) first individual intercollegiate national titlist was crowned when Don Trethewey won the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the ninth annual National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) National Track & Field Championships held that year at Sioux Falls, North Dakota. His time of 9:35.2 bettered the existing meet record by 11.6 seconds.

Surprising? Yes. But what made the feat extraordinary, it was the first time Trethewey had run a regulation steeplechase with the distance, water jump and other barriers all being the correct measurements.

That win earned Trethewey an invitation to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) national championships held at Berkeley, Calif. (Edwards Field) where two weeks later he placed seventh. Soon after that the 21-year-old Canadian competed in his country's national championships at Saskatoon in the province of Saskatchewan.
 


The next year, Trethewey was leading in the steeplechase at the NAIA nationals when he fell on the final water jump and went out of bounds disqualifying himself. But he bounced back to place fifth at the NCAA championships at Philadelphia, Penn. (Franklin Field) with a school record time of 9:17.9.

Incredibly those were the only regulation steeplechase events Trethewey competed in during his four-year career at WWCE.

Trethewey accomplished his national event winning performance in 1960 just days before the Vikings' Bill Wright became the NAIA national medalist in golf. Since those two achievements there have been 16 more individual national titles (1 swimming and 15 track & field) by Western athletes for a total of 18 over a span of 65 years. 

Trethewey, who hails from Kamloops, British Columbia, received the school's Athlete of the Year award for 1960-61, was inducted into Western's Athletic Hall of Fame in 1977 and was named to the WWU all-century (1900-99) cross country and track and field teams.

Trethewey at Western

Trethewey arrived at Western as a freshman in the fall of 1957, and for the next four years was the school's top runner in the one mile, two-mile and three-mile events, besides being the Vikings' best cross country runner.

As a sophomore in 1959, Trethewey broke the school mile record. It had been set in 1931 by Norm Bright, who became an internationally known runner.

At the NAIA District 1 Championships, Trethewey placed first in the two mile in 1959, despite losing a shoe at the end of the first lap, and in 1960 won the mile (4:16.5) and three mile (14:58.2). And he was the Evergreen Conference champion in both the mile and two mile in 1960 as well as the mile in 1961.

In cross country, Trethewey won three district titles from 1958 to 1960 and placed 15th (22:14) at the NAIA national meet in 1961.

It was not until 1959 that the steeplechase became part of Trethewey's repertoire. That began as a suggestion from his Kamloops High School coach, Jim Feke, made to Trethewey, who never ran a steeplechase in high school, and Western track coach Ray Ciszek.

Feke was from Hungary, a country with a solid steeplechase tradition. After seeing what Trethewey was accomplishing with his running, Feke felt he would be a natural at it.
Ciszek, who was at Western from 1949 through 1962, responded by constructing a makeshift water jump and barriers for practice purposes near the WWCE track located on campus just south of the Physical Education building (where the Science, Math and Technology – SMATE - building and parking lot 9G are now located).

"Ciszek was a wonderful coach who really went to bat for his athletes," said the 88-year-old Trethewey. A graduate of the University of Illinois, Ciszek, who coached and taught at Western for 14 years, helped the Fighting Illini to a football victory over UCLA at the 1947 Rose Bowl and later became director of the AAHPER Peace Corps Program and International Activities for 32 years.

"(Ray) had a saying, 'Nothing succeeds like success," recalled Trethewey, "So, I guess that about summed it up. I was able to hurdle and I had good endurance and I was successful … The steeplechase turned out to be the perfect event for me."

It was during the season of 1960 that Trethewey ran his first steeplechase event, albeit a modified version, in a meet held at the University of British Columbia. The event covered 3,000 meters and had a water jump, but the rest of the barriers were all hurdles.

So with no regulation steeplechase under his belt, Trethewey had to get special permission from the Evco and the NAIA national office in order to compete at nationals.

At that time, the steeplechase was a relatively new event. The first NCAA steeplechase (two miles) was not held until 1948, and it took place only in Olympic years until 1959. And the first NAIA steeplechase of 3,000 meters was held in 1957.
 
WWCE becomes destination school for Canadian male tracksters                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
In the 1950s and early 1960s, WWCE became a destination school of sorts for top Canadian male track and field athletes from the province of B.C.

The Vikings were able to attract quality student-athletes from across the border who were not recruited by major United States universities and did not wish to attend UBC.

At that time there were no athletic scholarships at Western, but tuition was inexpensive ($30 per quarter) at the teacher's college. The currency exchange rate between the two countries was at par and there was reciprocity in regards to higher education costs.

And a student-athlete could get an on-campus job cleaning the gym, working in the athletic laundry, weeding the track, etc., that paid 90 cents an hour, good money in those days.

Driving this financial bonanza for students was the state of Washington needing teachers to meet the needs of a huge post-war population explosion.

Thus, Ciszek was able to attract some outstanding talent from Canada, among them Peter Kempf, hurdler and discus thrower who went on to a seven-year career in the Canadian Football League as a tight end and placekicker; Gerry Swan, a four-time (1952-55) NAIA national competitor in the two mile; Ken Swalwell, a two-time (1954-55) All-American discus thrower, and Trethewey.

Trethewey before and after Western

Trethewey was born in Vancouver, B.C., in 1936, the only child of Charlie and Pearl Trethewey. He graduated from Kamloops (B.C.) High in the mid-1950s, competing in basketball and track for the Red Devils.

While competing as a KHS senior in the Vancouver Relays, Trethewey was approached by coaches from the University of Oregon about competing for the Ducks. That didn't work out, but he continued to train and ran the next year for the Vancouver Olympic Club. At a meet in Bellingham, he caught the eye of Ciszek, who convinced him to attend Western.

It was at Western that Trethewey met his wife Joanne, the couple recently celebrating their 62nd wedding anniversary. They have two daughters, Lesley, an insurance agent in Kelowna, B.C.; and Donna, an elementary teacher in Burnaby, B.C.

Trethewey also was outstanding in the classroom at Western, graduating cum laude in June of 1962 with a teaching degree in biology and an accumulative grade point average of 3.51 (4.0 scale).

Trethewey taught the next four years at a middle school in Vancouver, but teaching "didn't turn my crank," he said. He then did graduate work at Oregon State University, earning a master's degree in fish and wildlife management.

Trethewey worked in eastern Canada as a wildlife biologist for 2-1/2 years before coming back west to take a position at the Canadian Wildlife Service, a division of Environment Canada which is responsible for the conservation of migratory birds, species at risk and biodiversity. Trethewey stayed there for nearly 20 years, working on waterfowl habitats and river estuaries.

"I've always been an outdoors person," said Trethewey, an experienced fly fisherman. "Even before attending school as a youth … It was in the family. Early on, I remember my grandparents taking me salmon fishing on their boat in the straits of Georgia."

While at Environmental Canada he continued to compete for the Kajaks Running Club in Richmond B.C.

As a master's runner, every summer Trethewey would take part in a series of mid-week track events that were scored based on international age-graded tables. There were events for sprinters and middle distance runners as well as field events.

"For my age, I did reasonably well in the 800 through the 5,000, but the 3,000 meters (not surprisingly) was my best flat distance based on points from the age-graded tables," said Trethewey.

After graduating from Western, Trethewey ran in a number of steeplechases as a club runner. And unlike when he was first starting to run the event, these were ALL regulation.

The Steeplechase

The steeplechase event evolved from early cross country races in Ireland and England where runners navigated natural obstacles like ditches and hedges between church steeples in different towns, with the modern version being standardized at Oxford University, featuring fixed barriers and a water pit on a track.

The 7-1/2 lap race over 3,000 meters (1.86 miles) has a water jump and four other barriers to clear each lap, 28 jumps in all. The water jump barrier is 12-feet long and the others are eight feet each.

The barriers are not like those for hurdles races as they do not fall if hit. And the rules allow an athlete to negotiate the barrier by any means, so many runners step on top of them. The slope of the water jump rewards runners with more jumping ability, because a longer jump results in a shallower landing in the water pit.

The event requires elite endurance, for all those meters that must be run. Competitors must be athletic to go over the barriers; physically tough, to withstand inevitable pain; and mentally fortified, to focus while still doing everything else.

Trethewey had the aerobic strength, dexterity and general athleticism, along with the mental strength to do the steeplechase which taxes both the body and mind.
   
                                                                                                                                                Don Trethewey (right)