With coach Joe Sullivan’s help. Willie Lalk became a city champion gymnast and placed in the Ohio State Championships.
After graduating from Stivers in 1965, Willie coached and taught swimming and diving while managing the East Dayton Boys Club swimming pool. He attended the University of Dayton on a scholarship and in 1969 earned his Bachelor’s degree in education. As part of his scholarship’s requirements he started the University’s first gymnastics club and and was a teacher’s assistant in the required senior level gymnastics course for Physical Education majors.
Willie graduated from the University of Dayton and was hired as a teacher and gymnastics coach at Stivers High School. One of the things he is most proud of is coaching the Stivers gymnastics team to their last City Championship before Stivers closed as a neighborhood high school.
Subsequently Willie taught and coached in Cincinnati, Liberty, Indiana and Oxford, Ohio school systems. Also, he opened and operated two United States Gymnastics Federation schools in Indiana. Willie entered Xavier University and earned his Master’s Degree in 1984. He then became a school guidance counselor until he retired in 2005.
Willie gives much credit to his Stivers coach, Joe Sullivan, for any success he has had in coaching, teaching, and life. Willie and Peggy, his wife of forty-five years, have raised three children and currently reside in Oxford, Ohio.
