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Forming your legacy at Binghamton 

Donors can make an everlasting impact

In the classroom, on the track and even as a retired coach traveling with student-athletes on the team bus, Gary L. Truce has made a marked difference across Binghamton University.

Truce holds many roles at Binghamton: professor emeritus in Health and Wellness Studies, collegiate professor of Newing College from 1998-2006, past coach of men’s and women’s cross country and track and field, EXCELERATE Campaign Committee member, and donor — establishing the Coach Gary Truce Cross Country and Track & Field Scholarship and supporting the Anderson Center for the Performing Arts and other areas of campus. What they all have in common? His passion for helping students and the University shine — then, now and well into the future.

Truce was a Division I coach at the University of Cincinnati when he was recruited by Binghamton in 1968 to take over its men’s cross country and track programs, implementing the women’s cross country and track and field teams in 1976. He retired from coaching in 1994, was inducted into Binghamton’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008, and has a women’s cross country scholarship named in his honor, established by former student-athlete Cathleen M. Ellsworth ’86. He retired from the University in 2021.

Truce said he hopes his scholarship will boost the cross country and track and field programs, increase Binghamton’s competitiveness and “put another feather in the University’s cap” by filling financial gaps for the recipients.

“When I came to Binghamton, I didn’t think I’d be here more than a couple years,” Truce said. “Looking back, Binghamton is the best thing that could’ve happened to me. I probably learned as much from my students as they learned from me.”