By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Henry Trevathan, Jr. will be on the football sidelines for perhaps the final time this week.
He’s retiring from North Carolina State, though he made several coaching stops in Alamance County along the way in a 44-year coaching journey. That included time as Southern Alamance’s head coach prior to the move to the collegiate level.
“It has been a good run,” Trevathan said. “That’s a long time. I look forward to having a little more freedom.”
Trevathan, 68, has been director of high school relations for N.C. State’s football program since 2013.
The Wolfpack plays in the Gasparilla Bowl against Memphis on Friday in Tampa, Florida. Trevathan, 68, will officially retire Feb. 1 after assisting with the next phase of the transfer portal and with N.C. State’s mid-year enrollees.
Trevathan moved to Alamance County in 1996 to become offensive coordinator at Elon under coach Al Seagraves. He ended up calling Burlington home for more than 20 years.
Following eight years on the Elon staff, he spent time on high school staffs at Southern under Tony Perrou and Western under Hal Capps. There was a one-year stopover as Cardinal Gibbons’ head coach before he was back to Southern as head coach in 2011 and 2012.
Then he took the position at N.C. State when Dave Doeren came on board as head coach. Trevathan previously was in Raleigh as an N.C. State graduate assistant and head coach at Raleigh Broughton.
After leaving Southern, he continued to live in Burlington, where his son Sam Trevathan played football for Williams. His wife, Elizabeth, held staff positions at Turrentine Middle School and Williams. She died in 2017 following a long illness.
“Losing her was hard on everybody,” Trevathan said.
A couple of years later, he moved to Raleigh.
Doeren said he owes a lot to Trevathan for helping establish a foundation with the Wolfpack program.
“I hired Henry early in my tenure,” Doeren said. “He’s a longtime North Carolina high school coach, and his father coached at N.C. State. He really helped me get to know the high school coaches in this state and helped them get to know me. He is as first-class as they come.”
Trevathan said he was able to rely on his coaching contacts in his role to aid N.C. State’s recruiting.
“I knew a lot of people in that regard,” he said. “I think it was a smooth transition. I made it easy to pick up the phone and call somebody I knew.”
In that capacity, he kept in touch with many of the coaches in the area.
He said he has enjoyed working in the Wolfpack program and the support from Doeren. While he said he’s not a big fan of many of the changes that have impacted college football, Trevathan said he’s glad to gain an understanding of it.
“It was fun to be part of that change and that progression,” he said. “I’ve covered a large part of the gamut and seen a lot of change, especially the last four or five years.”
While his title has been the same since taking the job at N.C. State, the duties changed dramatically as the college landscape has been overturned. He was in a recruiting office with two full-time people, and now there are 14.
The retirement will allow more flexibility to see his 98-year-old father, who lives in Farmville. Yet this isn’t necessarily a full parting from football.
“I couldn’t rule out helping somebody in some capacity, probably on the high school level,” Trevathan said.
So this week is a turning point with the end of N.C. State’s season. Trevathan said after pregame recruiting activities that game days are generally less taxing for him.
“They’re a little bit less stressful,” he said. “During the game, it’s fun to watch the kids. When they come off the field, you’re there to pump them up. I still like to watch the game from a strategic standpoint.”
