Humboldt Athletics Hall of Fame
Today's HSU steeplechasers should be thankful Gordon Innes had a bad season in 1977. Otherwise, Innes' school record in the event might be even more out of reach.
Innes, a 1977 HSU graduate who gave the school its second of four national championships in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, was inducted into the HSU Hall of Fame in 1998. After 21 years, his record of 8 minutes, 48 seconds still stood as the top mark at the school that has traditionally featured steeplechasers among its best athletes.
A 1972 graduate of Upland High School, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles, Innes was a high school teammate of one-time American mile record-holder Steve Scott. But it was Innes – not Scott – who made waves on the national scene in those days. His two-mile time of 8:54 was a national record for high school juniors and still stands as one of the Top 50 times by a high school runner.
"For the health of the sport, I would prefer to see more people bettering my time," said Innes in a phone interview from Sacramento, where he works as an associate water resources control engineer who issues permits for the discharge of wastewater in Calfiornia.
"I'm one of the few people who actually works in the same field he was trained in during school," he said.
Innes had achieve national recognition in college before ever attending HSU. He began his college days at UCLA, where he set a school steeplechase record of 8:38 and placed fourth at the NCAA championships. Perhaps the most memorable experience for Innes while at UCLA, he said, was being part of the national junior team that competed in West Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union in 1973.
"It was a real interesting experience going into the communist countries at that time," he said.
Life at UCLA was not holding Innes' interest, however, The engineering program was not giving back to him what he was seeking in rewards, and he finally decided he had had enough when the school decided not to send him to cross counry nationals after he had qualified in 1975.
"I eventually said, 'screw it,' and took off to Humboldt State," he said. "It's definitely the best decision I ever made. It was certainly needed at the time."
NCAA regulations require athletes to sit out competition for year after transferring to another school, but Innes was able to benefit from the presence of then-HSU coach Jim Hunt and alumni Ron Elijah and Chuck Smead, both star runners.
"I got some great training up here," Innes said.
The next year a different story, however, as Innes more than did his part for the team. He led the cross country team to a second-place finish at nationals in Cleveland, although he was unhappy with the results due to some unfamiliar conditions.
"When we got to the course, the whole course was covered in two feet of snow," he said.
Track offered a great deal more success for Innes. He not only won a conference championship in the steeplechase, but also gained a title in the 5,000 meters. The season came to a crescendo for Innes at the national championships, where he won the steeplechase title in relatively easy fashion.
"I was pretty confident going in," he said.
Despite the multitude of accolates Innes received that season, he was disappointed in his performances. An illness early in the season slowed his progress, making his school record 10 seconds slower than his personal best in the steeplechase.
After graduating with a degree in environmental engineering, Innes went on to earn a master's degree from the University of Tennessee.
While an Achilles tendon injury cut Innes' competitive career short two years after graduating from HSU, he still finds time to run casually and participate in in-line skating.
