Nov. 30, 2004

A celebration of the life of Bill Meade will be held at Shryock Auditorium, on the campus of Southern Illinois University, Saturday at 12:00 p.m. The public is welcome.

The former Southern Illinois University gymnastics coach passed away Friday at Memorial Hospital of Carbondale from complications from a lung tumor.

Gymnastics flourished under Meade, who coached from 1956 until the program was dropped in 1989. During his career, he coached 15 individual NCAA National Champions, led three athletes to Olympic game competitions and coached the Salukis to four NCAA Division I National Championships, winning titles in 1964, 1966, 1967 and 1972.

Between 1961 and 1968, Meade's teams set the winning streak record for all SIU teams, which still stands at 68 games. Along with his success at the university, Meade was an assistant coach for two Olympic gymnastic teams -- in 1964 in Tokyo and the 1980 Olympics in which the United States did not compete.