| Year: | 2024 |
| Sport(s): | Coach - Gymnastics |
George Gyorgyfalvy coached gymnastics and taught physical education classes at Everett Junior College from 1961-1967. It was in his fourth year at EJC that he started the gymnastics program that began to compete across the pacific northwest against other college programs. Over the next three years, George coached a number of standout athletes who performed well in the big competitions. Among these athletes were EvCC Hall of Fame inductees Mace Brady and Dick Foxal, who went on to have his own illustrious 38 year coaching career.
In 1967, George left EJC for an opportunity at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon, where for 21 years he taught such courses as soccer, gymnastics, weight lifting, conditioning, skiing, and kayaking as well as coached many years for the competitive gymnastics and soccer programs. George retired from Lane CC in 1988 and eventually relocated to Bend Oregon living out his golden years as an avid skier, kayaker, and hiker. He was even a recurring traveler to the Austrian Alps and his homeland of Hungary.
Prior to his life in the United States, George served in the Hungarian Army in World War II and saw action in the closing months of the war against invading Russian forces. After the war, he earned a college degree from a physical education academy in Budapest before an unfortunate set of circumstances led to being imprisoned in a grueling communist-run political prisoner Gulag labor camp for three years in the early 1950s. After making his last of many death-defying crossings of the Iron Curtain by the mid-1950s, he immigrated to the United States in 1957, to reunite with his parents and brother. Soon after his arrival in the US, he enrolled at the University of Colorado and earned his Masters degree in Physical Education in 1960. It was then Everett Junior College that provided George with his first full time permanent teaching position, which was a major milestone in his long teaching career.
On March 6th, 2011 George passed away at the age of 86 in his Bend, OR home. He lived an extraordinary life and undoubtedly had a monumental impact on the lives of his students.
