Archie Blakely is always up for a challenge.

Whether it’s the physical demands of climbing mountain peaks or running 26-mile marathons, the mental demands of helping special needs students as a para-educator at Auburn High School, or the challenge of coaching young Trojan athletes to give their all, Blakely is ready.

“Trying to get the best out of kids is a challenge,” he said. “If you can try and get them to pick up some of the learning, just one thing maybe, that’s good.”

Raised in Tacoma, Blakely, 66, graduated from Stadium High School in 1964. Although physically active growing up, Blakely said he wasn’t into organized sports.

After high school he enrolled at the University of Puget Sound, where he majored in history, with a minor in political science. Just after his graduation from UPS in 1969, Blakely embarked on his first major physical challenge – ascending all 14,409 feet of Mount Rainier.

“I remember it well because it was the same day we landed on the moon,” Blakely said. “After we came down, we listened to Neil Armstrong’s ‘one giant leap’ speech in the truck on the way home.”

The ascent was the beginning of a love affair that has taken him to Mount Rainier’s peak more than 10 times and pushed him up many other mountains in North America.

After graduating from UPS, Blakely said, he worked at Boeing, helping to build the 737 for awhile before finding his true calling as a case manager for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services.

Eager to share his love of climbing, Blakely said, he turned many of the kids whose cases he was managing on to climbing. In exchange, one of them turned Blakely on to marathon running.

“I started running with Randy Yoakum,” Blakely said. “And I ran my first marathon in 1976 in Seaside, Ore.”

It wouldn’t be his last. Although he said he’s lost the exact count,  he estimates that he’s completed more than 100 marathons.

Not one to half step into anything, Blakely soon found a way to share his love of long distance running, helping Auburn track and cross country coach Joe Wilcox with the team. When Wilcox decided to hang up his whistle in 1979, Blakely stepped up and became the Trojan head cross country and track and field coach, positions he filled until the mid-90s.

Although team success eluded him for most of his coaching career, the 1985 cross country team did earn a berth at the state meet.

“I remember we had to run three times at Evergreen High School, for league and district meets,” Blakely said. “And I had two runners who were top five at districts, Bert Foderer and Chad Beard. We didn’t do that well as a team at state, because we weren’t that deep, though. You have to have five strong runners.”

For Blakely, however, it wasn’t about the official results; it was about interacting with the kids.

After his retirement from coaching in 1995, Blakely began substitute teaching for the Auburn School District the following year. Five years later, in 2001, he became a para educator at Auburn High School, working one-on-one with special needs students.

“You just start to sort of believe in the kids,” he said. “The challenge is trying to get the best out of the kids. Their limitations can’t frustrate you, you just have to walk away thinking that maybe you’ve accomplished something, that they’ve picked up some of the learning.”

Blakely also keeps busy running the clock and scoreboard at Trojan girls basketball games and helps out with track and field meets at Auburn Stadium.

“I’ll probably retire in the next couple of years, but right now I’m healthy, so I don’t mind coming to work every day,” he said.

Although his mountain climbing days are behind him, he still tries to lace up the sneakers and get out for the occasional run, but nothing like the 6-7 miles he used to put in daily.

“I’ve gotten slower over the years, but so far I still can go out and run and not fall totally apart,” he said.

And he still challenges himself.

“I just did a 5K in Kent,” he said. “I will probably try to do some more in the fall.”