Joe_Kotys
Joe Kotys
American gymnast
Joseph Kotys (October 31, 1925 – August 21, 2012) was an American artistic gymnast. He won a team gold medal and three individual medals at the 1955 Pan American Games. At the 1948 Summer Olympics, he placed seventh with the team and had his best individual result of 23rd place on pommel horse.
Kotys fought in World War II as a gunner on a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and completed 22 missions. He attended Kent State University and was a member of the Kent State Golden Flashes men's swimming and diving and men's gymnastics teams. As a diver he won the Ohio Conference three times, and as a gymnast, he won National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) titles in the all-around in 1949–50, on parallel bars in 1949–50, on the horizontal bar in 1950, and on the pommel horse in 1951. He also won three Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) titles, in the vault in 1948 and on parallel bars in 1948 and 1951. While competing on rings at the 1956 U.S. Olympic Trials he crashed to the floor due to a failed support mount. He retired soon after that to become a gymnastics coach in Ohio. In 1978 he was inducted into the U.S. Gymnastics Hall of Fame. He was the gymnastics coach in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, in the early 1960s.
Kotys was a member of Swiss Turners of Cleveland.[1]
Kotys died of pancreatic cancer on August 21, 2012.[2]
