Lefebvre, Area Boxing Coach, Dies ‘Was Always There’ For More Than 1,500 Boxers In Spokane, North Idaho

Tom Lefebvre, you might say, was a collec- tor. He collected kids. And friends.

“He touched a lot of people’s lives,” said one of his long-time friends, Dan Vassar. “I feel a void.”

Lefebvre, 65, who coached generations of boxers in Spokane and North Idaho, died early Monday after a long battle with cancer.

By his own estimation, Lefebvre coached more than 1,500 kids since he started in his hometown of Bonners Ferry in 1957. In 1970, he started the Eagles Boxing Club at the Spokane Eagles Lodge. He took his last team to a sub-novice competition in Airway Heights in January.

“They staged a card for him at the Eagles and boxers he had coached more than 20 years ago came to pay homage,” Vassar said. “There were guys there I didn’t even know. But they all knew Tom, and loved him.”

He saw boxing as more than a sport. He saw it as a character builder. Many a youngster who reportedly came to Lefebvre facing troubles at school turned into solid students.

“Tom never had any kids of his own in the program, but he was always there for the kids,” Vassar said.

In fact, Lefebvre never boxed himself.

In a 1987 story in The Spokesman-Review, he revealed “I wanted to box … but I received an injury when I was horned in the eye by a cow in high school and the doctor told me I couldn’t risk the serious injury if I ever fought.”

But that didn’t keep him from being involved in boxing.

“He could talk for hours about boxing,” Vassar said. “He was a walking encyclopedia on boxing. That and rodeo were his two loves… . He had a lot of friends in both sports.”

Lefebvre, who didn’t let his 6-foot-7 height keep him from an eye-to-eye relationship with his young charges - he spent a lot of time on his knees during ring training - picked up pointers from a lot of people.

One was the late Joey August.

Lefebvre liked to tell how early in his coaching tenure, August shared a philosophy that would stick with him through the years.

“Tom,” Lefebvre said August told him, “make it fun along with work, and you’ll never run out of kids.”

Lefebvre’s charges included some of the area’s best, including 1996 national champion Dewey Welliver, Fred Hatfied, Lenny Hahn, Harvey Steiche, Rowdy Welch and Danny and Frank Vassar.

Lefebvre, a past president of the Spokane Eagles, was inducted into the Inland Northwest Sports Hall of Fame Scroll of Honor in 1995. He also received a 25-year award from the Inland Empire Sports Writers and Broadcasters.

Survivors include brothers Norm and Alan “Butch” Lefebvre, both of Chehalis, Wash.; Isadore “Izzy” Lefebvre, Yakima; and sisters Mary Tosten, Othello, Wash., and Yvonne Seaford, Thorn Bay, Alaska.

Funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. Friday at St. Patrick’s Parish, 5021 N. Nelson. Burial Mass will be at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Bonners Ferry at 10 a.m. Saturday.