After coaching water polo and swimming for almost 60 years and teaching at CHS for 35 years, Wally passed away on Dec. 26, 2011.  He was a memorable coach, a wise mentor, a kind friend, a loving father, and a devoted husband who will always be remembered by the lives he touched.

Wally Lundt was a swimming and water polo coach for almost 60 years. He coached the CHS Boys' Swimming Team this past fall. (Courtesy of Sonia Beard)

Wally was born June 10, 1927 in St. Louis as an only child to loving parents, Walter Herman Lundt and Elsie Wilmsmeier.  His parents were not outdoors people or swimmers, but he spent many days at his cousin’s cottage on the Meramec River.  By the age of nine, he had learned how to swim.  In the later years of high school, Wally joined the Meramec River Patrol and saved over 200 lives from accidental drownings.  The Meramec River was ultimately a large source of Wally’s lifelong love for aquatics.

Coincidentally, through his newfound love of aquatics, Wally found the other love of his life, Ann Lundt.  She shared Wally’s passion for aquatics and eventually became his lifelong partner in marriage.

“My first date with Wally was on the river in a canoe while he was river patrolling,” Ann Lundt said.  “I also grew up in a family that had a cottage on the Meramec River…Wally and I really shared a love of the water.”

After graduating from Beaumont High School, Wally joined the Merchant Marines before attending Washington University in St. Louis.  Later, he joined the Marine Corps and was stationed as a Military Police in Guam.  He was then selected for the All Navy Swimming Team to compete in the mile swim.  Drawing upon his years of swimming, he won two events in Guam, two events in Mariana Islands, and one event in Shanghai, China.  He then was a finalist in the 1946 All Navy Championships held in Jacksonville, Florida.

“He was, in short, a man who never sat down,” Ann Lundt said.  “He always wanted to be busy and be doing something.”

Along with his interest in aquatics, Wally loved music and travel.  He started to play the violin in elementary school, played the bass in college with a musical group called the Hush Boys, and maintained season tickets to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

After serving in the Navy and Marines in the Pacific islands, Wally remained deeply committed to travel and extensively toured throughout Europe with Ann.

Coaching

For Wally, his choice to become a coach and teacher was derived from years of being involved with aquatics.  He never regretted this decision.

“His love for the Meramec River, swimming in high school and at Washington University where he was captain of his swimming team his senior year reinforced his love for water,” Ann Lundt said.  “He loved the outdoors, but he also loved competing.  The two worked together well and gave him the idea of what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.”

Seeking to share his passion for aquatics, Wally began his career as a high school teacher and swimming coach in 1952 at Normandy High School.  In 1957, he came to CHS where he coached swimming and water polo, and taught physical education, scuba diving, canoeing, and lifeguarding courses over the years.

Wally Lundt smiles after a victorious swim meet. (Courtesy of Sonia Beard)

His athletes saw him as a humble and direct coach.  Wally emphasized the importance of mastering the fundamentals of a sport like the different strokes in swimming.  CHS alum Richard Yawitz of the Class of 1973 who swam and played water polo under Wally, remembers a certain regimen and style to Wally’s coaching.

“He had a program,” Yawitz said.  “He prepared in advance what his practices were going to be.  He was predictable in terms of how he would construct his workouts, the passing drills, and the scrimmaging at the end… There was a certain flexibility and interpretation, so that as long as you stayed within the guidelines, you were fine.”

Sports with Wally, however, required a significant amount of hard work, dedication, and commitment.

“He brought this attitude of winning and taught the players and the team that it was important to play as hard as they could,” Yawitz said.  “[The team] would think about water polo not only when they were practicing, but other times during the day too.  So it involved the team 24-7.”

Even till this past fall when he coached the CHS Boys’ Swimming Team, Wally continued to inspire and instill in his players the ability and confidence to take on difficult challenges.

“He taught me to work hard, and even though something was hard, it didn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it,” junior Nico Salavaggione, a current CHS swimmer and water polo player, said.

Despite his sometimes blunt and serious tone as a coach, Wally found moments for the team to have some well-deserved fun.

“He definitely made practice hard, but during breaks he always had something to say, a story, or a compliment to give to us on how we were doing,” Salavaggione said.  “He knew how to make us laugh…He connected with all of us so well because he was a nice guy with a good sense of humor…We were all just really good friends.”

Although Wally coached into his eighties, he was always able to connect on a personal level with his players.  CHS alum Todd Almli of the Class of 1989 who swam with Wally, remembers the friendly and personable spirit that Wally brought to the team.

“He was sixty back then with me,” Almli  said.  “He was old at that point, but that did not matter.  His age did not matter.  He was relate-able to anybody.  For six decades, he connected with teenagers.”

More Than A Coach

Wally was much more than a coach for his athletes; he was friend and mentor that players could count on for counsel and guidance.

“He was able to see the real person and understand what was going in each young man or young woman’s life,” Ann Lundt said. “Working with people was pure joy for him.”

Wally coaches 1968 CHS water polo players Alan Stiffelman on left and Jimmy Spiegel on right in the water. (Courtesy of Alan Stiffelman)

CHS alum Alan Stiffelman of the Class of 1967, swam and played water polo with Wally.  During high school, Wally became a fatherly figure in Stiffelman’s life as he was always accessible for a conversation with kind words of advice.

“When I had problems, I knew I could talk to Wally,” Stiffelman said.  “You just knew that he could be trusted.”

Wally cared about each of his athletes.  CHS alum Jim Floerchinger of the Class of 1988, swam and played water polo with Wally.  He remembers Wally as a warmhearted coach who was concerned about the “success of the whole athlete.”

“Everyone needs someone like Wally in their life,” Floerchinger said.  “He cared about our lives…He probably cared more about the successful life of his athletes outside of the sport than the actual competition…I always felt that even though I was being pushed, Wally wanted the best for me.”

Inspired by Wally’s coaching, Floerchinger has become a successful water polo and swimming coach.  As a coach, Floerchinger echoes Wally’s focus on the individual success of each of his athletes to help prepare them for life–beyond just the sport.

Although Wally focused on the individual, he also recognized the importance of teamwork, valuing the bonds and friendships formed between the various freshman to seniors on the swimming and water polo teams.  According to Almli, Wally was “part of the gang” and the uniting factor of the team.

“Traveling to meets in the bus, Wally never sat in the front of the bus,” Almli said.  “Instead, he sat in the back with us, yapping away.”

Over the years, Wally coached numerous successful swimming and water polo teams.  Under his leadership, the CHS aquatic program flourished throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  At the time, it was not unusual for over a hundred students to pack into the old Natatorium for a swim meet.  Water polo and swimming were among some of most popular sports at CHS, amassing several state titles during those decades.

From 1967 to 1972, Yawitz recalls losing only a handful of water polo games in high school and going undefeated in his senior year at a time when Clayton aquatics were top in the state.

Life Lessons

Indeed, Wally loved to win; however, it wasn’t all about winning for him.

“He always said, ‘It’s easy to win, anybody can win, but the ability to lose and go on the next day is the most important thing of all,’” Ann Lundt said.

Thus, Wally not only taught his teams how to win, but he also taught them how to lose.

Wally smiles in the center of the team picture of the 2010 CHS Water Polo Team. (Courtesy of Sonia Beard)

“He taught us about fair play, and honesty, and how to approach any situation,” Yawitz said.  “I remember that by just playing the sport, you learn more from your defeats than you do your victories.  When you lose, you think of how you could be better, so you don’t lose again.  The games that we lost, I remember the most.”

The principles that Wally taught were timeless for his athletes.

“He also loved helping young people fit into adulthood by really thinking about strong ideals, the importance of a work ethic,” Ann Lundt said.  “He tried to also teach courage to young people, a keen sense of integrity, and the ability to cope with the inevitable failures in life.”

Junior Jack Layden, a current CHS swimmer and water polo player, recognizes the significant impact that Wally has made on his life.

“He helped me grow from being a freshman and learn how to be a man,” Layden said. “He taught me how to be a good person.  Wally was someone who you could look up to as he had dedicated his whole life to helping people.”

As Wally coached year after year, his enthusiasm never diminished because he truly loved his job.

“He was in the right niche,” Ann Lundt said.  “Wally never complained about going to work.  He really loved it.  He wanted to get there, the sooner the better.”

Even this past fall, when he became sick during the boys’ swimming season, Wally was committed to trying to come to as many practices as possible.

“This season I did my best because I wanted him to be proud,” Salavaggione said. “Although he wasn’t always there, he was with us in our thoughts.  We kept working hard because that it what he wanted us to do.”

Family Man

Wally always kept a busy schedule, but first, and foremost, he was a family man.

“When he came to the door, I could tell whether they had won or lost, but the minute he came in door, he was hundred percent husband and father,” Ann Lundt said.  “He had the ability to put aside anything that had gone wrong…  Not many men can achieve that.”

Wally enjoys watching a Civil War Re-enactment in May of 2011 at Jefferson Barracks with his wife, Ann Lundt. Wally always set aside time for his family. (Courtesy of Sonia Beard)

Wally made sure that he devoted time always to his family.  Almost every weekend, the family would go on a hike, with a 5-miler being a short one.  Also, Wally and his wife, Ann, loved to share their love of the outdoors with their children and grandchildren.

“He was always involved in teaching the children about the outdoors,” Ann Lundt said.  “We did a lot of camping and canoeing.  We probably hiked 200 miles a year always.  We were both hikers.”
Wally coached many successful teams and he was loved by many, but perhaps his greatest accomplishment was his 57 years of marriage.

Wally’s teams knew just how meaningful his family and Ann was to him when practice would usually end fifteen minutes early on Fridays so he could take Ann to the lake house.  He always had a place in his heart for both his family and aquatics.

His Legacy

When Wally began working at Shaw Park Aquatic Center in 1952, no one knew of his future legacy.

After being a lifelong proponent of the sport as an athlete and a coach, Wally was inducted into the USA Water Polo Hall of Fame in 2004.  He was a pioneer for water polo in the Midwest by helping start the first water polo league in St. Louis with University City and Ladue in 1960.  Wally also began one of the longest running water polo tournaments in the nation in 1971, the Clayton Invitational Water Polo Tournament. Today, his presence as well as his passion for aquatics and for helping others is felt by six decades of high school students and members of the community.

“He gave his life to other people,” Layden said.  “The swim team and the water polo team will never forget Wally.”

The Clayton community is fortunate to have had Wally as their keystone for aquatics for almost 60 years.

“I think it is profound the impact he had on the people that he came into contact with,” Patty DeForrest, the Director of Clayton Parks and Recreation, said.  “I don’t think there’s any family in Clayton that did not have any connection to Wally.”

As the principles that he taught were timeless, his character and devotion to people were untouched by age or health.

“After seeing the memorial service, it was interesting to see his consistency in character,” senior Julia Grasse, a current CHS swimmer and water polo player, said.  “It just made so much sense. We actually really did know him.  There were stories that were told that we could relate to that happened fifty years ago.”

The memory of Wally will continue with the countless individuals who were touched by his life.  He was a constant example of dedication, fortitude, and service.

“I was always remember his life lessons, first and foremost, but also just remembering Wally in the last 25 plus years at Shaw Park with his brimmed hat, and swimming suit,” Yawitz said.  “There he was out there with his smiling face, always happy.”

Thank you Wally for teaching us how to live a rich and fulfilling life.  We will always love you.

Traditionally, lifeguards are taught to jump into action when an infant is struggling in the pool.  This, however, is not the protocol at an infant survival swimming program offered at the Center of Clayton, which teaches infants as young as six-months-old to swim.

The goal of the program, according to Master Instructor Chuck Teasley, “is to prepare children to survive an unseen accident in the water.”

“We want them to have the self-rescue skills necessary to save themselves,” Teasley said.

Not your conventional swim class, the basis for the Infant Swimming Resource curriculum is a behavioral learning theory known as operant conditioning, a method where tasks are presented in an order from least to most difficult.  Teasley called it the “most child-friendly affirmative approach to shaping swimming behavior.”

“A lot of those diaper dips teach those kids that the water is a warm friendly place to play,” Teasley said. “I don’t want my kids thinking that the water is a fun place when they don’t have any skills, because that’s how they’d end up at the bottom of the pool.”

Danielle Stahl, a parent with two kids enrolled in the program, praised the lessons.

“I used to be a nurse in the pediatric ICU so I’ve seen what can happen to a kid who is in the water without these lessons,” Stahl said.  “Especially with two little boys who just run towards the water the minute they see it, it’s comforting to know that if they were to fall in and I wasn’t there, they would be okay.”

According to Teasley, 80 percent of the kids that drown are within a foot from the wall.  Thus, a central goal of his curriculum is to teach the infant to be able to swim those few extra feet to safety.  At least six of the over 5000 infants Teasley has instructed have used their newly-learned skills to save their own lives.

CHS students have experienced the program firsthand while working as lifeguards. Senior lifeguard Haley Wartman has spent many mornings on duty watching Teasley in the water.

“It scares me,” Wartman said. “I constantly feel on edge like I might have to jump in at any second.  Some of these kids can’t even walk and yet they are being taught to float.”

However, despite the stress of watching Teasley “flip the kids over so they are face first in the water and then watching the kids struggle to turn themselves over,” Wartman said that the lessons were a “good safety precaution.”

Teasley echoed Wartman’s comments.

“When the lifeguards first see it they are jumping out of the chairs and getting ready to jump in the water, but after a couple minutes of seeing what the kids are capable of doing, they think the program rocks,” Teasley said.
While some lifeguards are apprehensive about the program, parents are rarely flustered.

“When they first start, I guess there is some anxiety from the parents, but I have given them an opportunity to understand what I am going to do,” Teasley said.

Stahl agreed that the lessons did not bother her, because she knew they were in the best interest of her kids.

The program lasts 10 minutes per day, five days a week for around six weeks, depending on the success of the child in learning survival skills.

“I definitely recommend the swim instruction to other parents,” Stahl said. “Every kid should have to go through this – it should be a requirement.”

Even the people who didn’t use the courts were relieved when the announcement finally stopped.

The repeated message did bring up a few questions. After all, why shouldn’t students be allowed into the center? For Bob Bone, the athletic director at CHS, the issue was numbers.

“Basically it comes down to the number of teams we have using the center courts,” Bone said. “We had some additional teams with our no-cut policy, and there was just mass confusion down there with people everywhere. To get the season started, we closed the center after school for a couple of weeks.”

The policy has been in effect for three years. Bone says it helps winter sports teams shape up.

“It seemed to help a lot because our teams were able to get a little bit organized,” Bone said. “As you can imagine, the first few days of any season are hectic with getting stuff turned in, figuring out who’s going where.”

Bone says the policy is not likely to change any time soon. Clayton has a special relationship with its community center -it’s attached to it. Most schools have their own facilities, but this arrangement means Clayton students have to share their courts and track with the public.

One team that was forced to do this over the winter was the Winter Running Club. The extended winter kept them off the track. The runners didn’t run into any problems using the facility.

“We took our turn just like everyone else,” Coach Kurtis Werner said. “We put our thirty minutes on the bikes and got off. We went and found other things to do.”

Werner eventually ran into some difficulties in sharing the center.

“You have these old, grandmotherly figures, walking, 70 plus years old, and you have teenagers flying by them, doing a work out that they [the grandmotherly figures] don’t quite understand,” Werner said.

The club never received any formal complaints, although they did get several frowns and head-shakes. Werner said using the center was easy for the club to do. Beyond the size of the small track, there were never any difficulties.

The biggest concern with the center-use policy is the students who use the center after school each day. Junior Lauren Hill is such a student. After school, she enjoys using the center to work out. She says she never has any trouble using the center.

“I’ve never had any difficulty with it [getting into the center],” Hill said. “Sometimes it can be troublesome when I forget my card.”

Hill uses the center all year round, including during the winter. She gets in with her student ID.

Considering all the challenges of sharing a public center, CHS has done a great job of managing when the students can work there.

“I think any time you have a joint-use facility like we have it can be challenging,” Bone said. “It’s work, but it helps immensely in those first few practices.”

This is the typical scenario: A student, whether he or she is going to class, to workout, or to eat, enters the double doors. He attempts to walk by unnoticed, but then the dreadful “Excuse me” rings in his ears. He is asked to show his ID.

Now this is where the situation may take many different paths: The student may dig through his backpack, present the card, and continue towards his destination. Or the student reveals that he does not have his ID with him, which is where things may get ugly.

I have seen students without their IDs understandingly turn around and walk around to the front entrance of the Center, but then there are those who choose to argue. Some continue walking despite the man’s request; others attempt persuasion, but worst of all some curse, complain, and become hostile to the man who in turn may be hostile back.

I have heard students curse and complain about him when he tells them they must go through the front desk of the Center as opposed to the convenient entrance connecting to the school. I too have had this experience, grudgingly making the trek from Stuber Gym to the Center’s front entrance.

From my experience and what I have witnessed, the man is simply doing his job, yet students still believe they are in the right when they complain about him. It is not the man we should be complaining about, but the system.

What is the likelihood that a student coming through those doors in the middle of the day does not attend the high school? How often do you see Ladue, MICDs, or Burroughs students coming through those doors? Probably never.

If I am wearing a CHS shirt, with a CHS gym bag around my shoulder is it really necessary to question my school attendance? And in most cases I am not questioned. I have been to the Center so many times that the man knows me, even has conversations with me. This I found true with many other students who simply show kindness to a man enforcing the rules which he did not create. We may hate the rules, but we should not hate and complain about a man who is simply doing his job.