A legacy

Last night we went to a dinner to celebrate our swim coach and his 50 years of service to OSU. 50 years is an amazing amount of time to spend doing anything and our coach took the faculty staff fitness program from nothing to over 800 participants and 40 classes. He was also the men's swim coach back in the days when they had separate gym's for men and women and the men swam in the nude. There was lots of joking last night about coach wearing shorts no matter what the weather and how could his legs be pasty white despite the exposure but most of the evening was spent appreciating his influence on so many people and their fitness.

When the Dean of Health and Human Sciences started at OSU coach asked her to describe her exercise routine and she said, "Well I used to run!" and coach said, "But what do you do now?" and within the week he emailed her to let her know that she could meet him to walk at 5:30 am everyday. Bravely she met him for the first walk and stuck with it for the past several years.

The Dean described at the dinner that coach had led a frugal life and had saved up $20,000 and started the Bill and Judy Winkler fund to help with research projects on healthy aging. I don't know too many underpaid people that save up their money and then donate it back to their place of business. He is quite an inspiration and will leave a lasting legacy at OSU. I'm very proud to have met him and I am inspired by his generosity.

Here is a link to a brief summary of his story.

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