Paul Stoklos' occupations and interests in his 57 years have been myriad – gymnast and career gymnastics coach, ski patroller, longtime member of a search and rescue dog group, competitive sky diver, fencer, janitor, pole vaulter, Boy Scout, skier, biker, runner, first-aid instructor, airline baggage handler, scuba diver and licensed pilot.
Evidently, sleep did not make the cut.
When friends or loved ones used to counsel Stoklos to take it down a notch lest he kill himself – and, consider, he underwent a quintuple bypass a dozen years ago – Stoklos had a stock reply.
"But think of how much I've got done,'' Stoklos would say.
At UAA, he started the gymnastics program from scratch in 1984 and is the only head coach in Seawolves history, developing a fledgling program and carrying it into Division I, the highest level of American college sports.
Stoklos is the third-longest tenured employee in the athletic department – only associate athletic director Kevin Silver and senior associate athletic director Tim McDiffett have been around longer. He has stuck around long enough to see UAA gymnastics finally get its own facility, inside the new Alaska Airlines Center – for 30 previous years, Seawolves gymnasts trained off-campus because the school did not have a facility to accommodate them.
"He's persevered,'' McDiffett said. "He's had a tough go. (UAA gymnasts') ability to have success in those (past) circumstances was difficult, very hard.
"I give him a lot of credit for persevering. I think a lot of people would have said, 'Man, I don't see this getting any better.'"
But it did, and so has UAA gymnastics.
Stoklos' team this season posted the highest score in school history and qualified a gymnast for the NCAA Division I West Regional for the fourth straight year – junior M'rcy Matsunami competes in the all-around Saturday in Berkeley, California.
Even after 31 seasons at UAA, Stoklos doesn't see the end of his career looming, not given the strength of a program he built, not in a state the Wisconsin-raised, Arizona-schooled coach quickly grew to love, and certainly not when he's having such a blast coaching young adults and working in a facility that was long a dream and in a gymnastics room he largely helped design.
"This is home to me,'' Stoklos said one recent afternoon, sitting in his office at the Alaska Airlines Center. "This is family.
"If you like what you're doing, why would you leave it? You're working around all this energy. It's the fountain of youth.''
BUILDING A PROGRAM FROM SCRATCH
In 1984, Stoklos was in his mid-20s and an assistant gymnastics coach at the University of Arizona, where he earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry and biology, and was in graduate school studying exercise science.
He wanted to become a head coach badly enough that one day he told his boss, "Jim, I'd go anywhere to coach, even Alaska.''
The next day, Stoklos recalled, his boss walked up to him holding a piece of paper – it was a job announcement for UAA, which was seeking a coach to start the program.
Stoklos called Tom Besh, who was then UAA's running and skiing coach, to get the low-down on the school and athletic program. He looked up an old acquaintance living in Anchorage and she helped him out when he arrived to interview for the job. He fell for the city and its surrounding mountains immediately.
"I left here saying, 'I want this job, I want it bad,'" Stoklos recalled. "How many times to you get to build a program?''
The son of a doctor and nurse, Stoklos grew up in Brookfield, Wisconsin, where he took to coaching as a teenager. In high school, he competed in gymnastics, but figures he "spent as much time practicing as I did teaching the other gymnasts, even ones pushing me out of the lineup." He also taught at the local parks and recreation department, and when he went to a nearby junior college after high school, he continued to coach at his old high school.
At 20, Stoklos headed to Arizona, where his brother lived, and where he initially thought he would study engineering. He began helping out with Wildcats gymnastics and became an undergraduate assistant, then graduate assistant, all of which prepared him for the UAA job.
At UAA, after guiding three national champions and 12 All-America selections at the Division II level, Stoklos and company ascended to Division I in 2004.
By then, Stoklos had also developed other interests. He'd been involved in Alaska Search and Rescue Dogs for 15 years – his two German Shepherds currently are Mora and LZ (as in landing zone). He'd been on the ski patrol at Alyeska. He'd obtained his pilot's license.
"Paul has fit Alaska," McDiffett said, "and Alaska has fit Paul as well."
From 1987 to 2008, Stoklos was a part-time baggage handler for United Airlines, working 20 hours a week to get extra income and flight benefits, and exercise. For 21 years he often slept in short shifts. He would work a 9:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. shift for United, catch a few hours sleep, awake for UAA practices as early as 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., work the rest of the day and get a few hours sleep before returning to the airport.
Stoklos doesn't mainline coffee; he drinks tea. He speaks fast, frequently flashing his rosy-cheeked smile. He's fit, with muscled forearms -- "Probably wears the same shirt size as when he got here, which I'm a little upset about,'' McDiffett said. Stoklos vibrates with energy, says he always has.
"If I grew up in a different era, as a kid they'd have probably prescribed me enough Ritalin to kill an elephant," he said.
Gymnast Morgan Cook, who recently wrapped her four-year UAA career, said the Seawolves feed off Stoklos' enthusiasm in the gym and are inspired by his interests outside it.
"He's very dedicated to everything he does, and it's something we want to do," Cook said. "We want to be as passionate about things in our life as he is with the things in his life."
SETBACK, THEN BACK TO WORK
In 2003, Stoklos hadn't been feeling well physically for a while and underwent an angiogram to try to identify the problem.
The result was chilling: Stoklos, outwardly fit and a non-smoker, said he was told he needed open-heart surgery – immediately.
So, naturally, he replied that he needed a week to get all the various things in his life in order before surgery.
In any event, he underwent a quintuple bypass and spent four days in the hospital recovering. His first day home, he went for a 40-minute walk, far longer than any physician would have advised, had Stoklos asked. After three months of heart rehabilitation – Stoklos said he tried to constantly accelerate the standard rehab schedule – he was back on the job.
Stoklos said he was told his heart condition was genetic – the old refrain about picking the wrong parents – as opposed to self-induced of sorts. Still, he figures his constant work and play, and little sleep and generous stress, likely did not help.
"They talk about burning the candle at both ends," Stoklos said. "I tell people I threw the whole candle in the fire."
Since, Stoklos said he tries to eat healthier. He doesn't have that part-time airline job any longer. He tries to monitor his weight, which is difficult during gymnastics season – Stoklos said recently he weights 168-169 pounds and wants to get down to 160.
For 57, he looks damn good.
And some things probably will never change. Stoklos remains committed to keeping UAA gymnastics on the rise. He's committed to Alaska Search and Rescue Dogs. His pilot's certification has lapsed, so he'd like to regain that, and maybe buy a plane too.
Most immediately, he will coach Matsunami at the West Regional on Saturday before he puts her on a plane back to Anchorage on Sunday.
And Stoklos? After Saturday's meet, he's remaining in the Lower 48 to recruit.
Of course he is.
Reach Doyle Woody at dwoody@alaskadispatch.com, check out his blog at adn.com/hockey-blog and follow him on Twitter at @JaromirBlagr