2/21/2022

Bill Tribou, UConn’s oldest All-American, dies at age 101

By Lori Riley

Hartford Courant

Feb 21, 2022 at 3:10 pm

Bill Tribou, former UConn cross country runner and the Huskies’ oldest All-American, died Sunday at age 101 in Mandeville, Louisiana.

Tribou and his longtime friend and teammate, the late Charley Robbins of Middletown, were the first UConn athletes to earn All-America honors at the school in cross country in 1941.

Tribou lived in Granby for many years and was a longtime member of the Hartford Track Club after serving as the club’s second president from 1972-74. He was a regular at local road races and continued racing and running until he was 95 years old. He loved running the New Haven Road Race 5K and the Manchester Road Race and still holds age group records at Manchester in the 80-84 division (41:33, 2001), 85-89 (59:37, 2010) and 90-plus (1:05:05, 2011).

Tribou won national Senior Games titles and was a member of the New England 65-Plus Runners Club Hall of Fame. He was the USA Track & Field national runner of year for the 90-94 age group from 2012-2014.

In 1995, he told The Courant, “I expect to be running until I cross the great finish line in the sky.” He was 74 at the time, just coming off Achilles surgery. He had a hard time finding a doctor who would operate on somebody his age just so he could run, but he did and he went on to run another 20 years.

Hartford Marathon race director Beth Shluger has a poster of Tribou, running in his 90s at one of the Hartford Marathon races, in her office.

“He was a really inspiring man,” Shluger said. “Talk about a lifelong love of running.”

Tribou was born Dec. 18, 1920, on a farm in Maine, where his family raised corn and potatoes. His family eventually moved to Wethersfield, where his father was a judge. Bill ran for the Wethersfield High track team, then went to UConn, where he went on to run the mile in 4:14, which, at the time, was the 11th fastest time in the world. He was also part of the fastest mass finish in the mile (five runners under 4:15) in the world at the IC4As, the amateur track and field championships.

After college, Tribou joined the Army. Following World War II, he was stationed in Europe and ran in a race with Sydney Wooderson, one of the top milers in the world, and Arne Andersson, the world record holder, in front of 55,000 people at White City Stadium in London. Roger Bannister, who went on to become the first man to break the 4-minute mile barrier, was 15 years old and watched from the stands. Tribou finished seventh of eight runners, but it was a thrill for him to be in the race.

Very few adults ran after college back then, so Tribou went to work for Travelers. He started back running in the late 1960s, urged by his friend Robbins, who died in 2006 at age 85.

Tribou recalled winning a trophy for being the oldest runner in a race in 1968. He was 47. “Back then, 47 was ancient,” he said.

He moved from Granby to Louisiana a few years ago to live with his son Tony.