James A. Farkas, Olympic gymnast, Milwaukee Turners athletic director
Hyfler/Rosner
Farkas knew what it took to develop a good gymnast
By AMY RABIDEAU SILVERS
asil...@journalsentinel.com
Last Updated: Sept. 16, 2003
For James A. Farkas, the chance to escape Communism came after a sunny day
on a crowded North Sea beach in Holland.
The year was 1953. Farkas, then a member of the Hungarian Olympic team,
noticed a woman walking toward the surf.
It was his sister, who had earlier escaped from their native Hungary. A
little later, he went to sit next to her.
"Hello, Miss Farkas," he said, speaking quietly.
"Get lost, dummy," she whispered back. "They're watching us."
His sister, Andrea, had gone to Holland and the beach to find her brother,
but knew it was too dangerous to speak publicly. Later that day, he received
a slip of paper with an address.
That night, Farkas climbed out a back window of the team's hotel in
Rotterdam. He flagged down a taxi, then kept switching cars. He finally
ended up at a safe house, then sought asylum in Germany.
Fate brought him to Milwaukee, where he became the Milwaukee Turners
physical education director in 1959.
Farkas died of a heart attack Sept. 5 at his home in Hales Corners. He was
75.
His death came the day before the Milwaukee Turners' 150th anniversary
celebration. While a controversial figure in local Turners' history - a
leader in the split that created what is now known as the East Side
Turners - Farkas earned a reputation as a talented coach.
In honor of his accomplishments, the gym facility at the Milwaukee Turners
will be named the Jim Farkas Memorial Gymnasium, board members decided
Monday night.
Nationally, Farkas was known as a gymnastics leader, helping to found the
United States Gymnastics Federation and writing the handbook that generated
its first income, said Gene Gilbert, Milwaukee Turners president.
Farkas was born Attila Farkas but changed his name to James A. Farkas.
Friends at a New York gym took to calling him "Jimmy," saying he looked like
actor James Dean.
The name "Attila" was the name of a folk hero in Hungary, but it did not
play well to American ears.
When he arrived in America, he worked as a butler at the estate of a wine
merchant. He spent his free time working out at a YMCA and studying English,
including long hours at American movies.
Other jobs followed. Farkas, who had taught at the Hungarian College of
Physical Education in Budapest, became a physical therapist and then
instructor at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.
His first wife, Ildiko, and daughter Eva were able to flee Hungary in 1956,
joining him in the United States. The couple divorced in 1968.
In a 1959 interview, the new Turners director called the athletic education
system in Hungary simply "unendurable." There he was required to teach "in
the Communist manner," responsible for seeing that his athletes became "good
Communists."
As a trainer here, Farkas was unabashedly opinionated about how to develop
good gymnasts, something that he believed could not begin in high school.
That practice, he declared, was "like throwing seed on unfertile ground."
Farkas believed it was better to start at 4 or 5 years old, easing athletes
into competition five or six years later.
He also believed in strict direction and discipline for children - including
the use of some physical discipline in the gym. That approach became
controversial as the years went on, and proved to be a flash point as Farkas
and supporters broke away to create the former Greater Metropolitan Turners
in 1981.
The truth was that the Milwaukee Turners then had other internal issues,
including financial ones, members said.
"He was an old world teacher," Gilbert said. "He was a champion gymnast in
the 1952 Olympics, and he continued the tradition of old world gymnastics."
Fred Roethlisberger, a former student who is now men's gymnastics coach at
the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, agreed.
"Aside from my father, I'd say he was the most influential man in my life,"
said Roethlisberger, 60, of River Falls.
"He was extremely demanding, a strict disciplinarian. Maybe once or twice a
year, I'd get a compliment," he said, laughing. "When I was in the 1968
Olympics, I wrote him a letter from Mexico City, and said, 'Thanks.' He
wrote me back and said, 'Thank your father.' "
Farkas also was someone who would climb up and help a student, frozen on a
rope that proved too high, said Rose Marie Barber, the Milwaukee Turners'
executive director.
"I met him in the gym because I had a daughter in his classes," said Pamela
Stein-Farkas, his wife of 20 years.
He remained active with the Greater Metropolitan Turners until retirement in
1991.
Survivors include his wife; daughter Eva Anderson; stepdaughter Rebecca
Stanis; sister Andrea von Richthofen; and grandchildren.
In keeping with his wishes, no formal service is planned. Instead, a wake
will be held at 4 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Milwaukee Turners, 1034 N. 4th St.