When President Kennedy started the Peace Corps, Mrs. Koeppl joined the staff of Georgetown University and oversaw the training of 110 female volunteers, ages 18 to 60, from 47 states
Through Physical Education, Leading Instructor Taught of Life
By Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 15, 2004; Page C10
Milada Lejkova Koeppl's house on a cul-de-sac in Silver Spring is like a treasured old book overflowing with rich stories. The red cut-glass bowls and the blue onion-pattern china from Czechoslovakia show her connection to a once painful yet cherished past. The view from the big picture window that she loved looking out of reveals slight traces of the azaleas and goldenrods that greeted a bevy of visitors.
And then there are the stray duckpin bowling balls in front of the fireplace and the skis in the basement. Those perhaps symbolize best the kind of active, athletic life that Mrs. Koeppl advocated for a generation of young people.
Mrs. Koeppl, a woman who dressed sharply and offered chocolates as treats, filled her life with her passions: her family, with whom she "would celebrate everything," her daughter said; her native country, from which she had to flee "with nothing but the clothes on her back"; and her career here, where she has been hailed as a pioneer in the field of physical education.
"She was a woman ahead of her time," said her daughter, Jana Ritter, sitting recently in her childhood home looking through photo albums and pointing out keepsakes from her mother's life. "I am learning . . . this person I called Mom was so much more."
The bookends for Mrs. Koeppl's life in the Washington area are her birth in 1927 in Prague and her death there Jan. 10. In between, she spent 27 years at Immaculata Preparatory School in Georgetown, transforming athletics for young girls there and changing how teachers and government officials across the country viewed physical education for schoolchildren. After Immaculata closed in 1985, she lent her time to assisting local Czechs by cooking, cleaning and just being "there as a friend, as a support," said Ritter, who lives in Potomac.
From 1958 to 1985, classes at the all-girls school included such sports as archery, bowling, basketball, swimming, volleyball and rowing, as well as tumbling, rhythmic dancing and roller skating. Often, Mrs. Koeppl would have the students do sit-ups as she counted in one for the seven languages she spoke. Students got more than just a workout from the woman they called "Doc."
One former student wrote in a letter dated Jan. 29, 1984: "Did you know that I signed up for that [gym] class because I was so impressed with you? You teach so much more than physical education; you teach honesty, leadership but most of all you build self-esteem and a sense of responsibility."
Michelle Sheahan, who was a ninth-grader at Immaculata the year it closed, said she went on one of the trips to Europe that Mrs. Koeppl organized for students. "Doc's enthusiasm for sports and for discovering different cultures was contagious," said Sheahan, who now teaches music to preschoolers at Holy Trinity School in the District. "I try to find songs in other languages, and the students are excited about learning something new."
Mrs. Koeppl also coached successful school teams in such sports as field hockey, volleyball and soccer. She held gymnastic exhibitions at Immaculata, to which she would invite dignitaries and White House officials. She lectured at area universities and taught classes at the YMCA.
At one point in her career, some people questioned Mrs. Koeppl's notion that a well-rounded exercise program would benefit girls and not make them appear unfeminine.
"Exercise doesn't make girls masculine, only healthy," she repeated in a 1980 article in the Washington Star. "Girls require exercise, and if your think it is unfeminine, just ask their husbands and boyfriends."
At President Dwight D. Eisenhower's request, Mrs. Koeppl spoke in 1958 at a New York University workshop -- attended by leading physical educators, physicians and military officials -- on fitness training methods for youths in countries behind the Iron Curtain.
The work done at New York University reportedly resulted in President John F. Kennedy's decision to form the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.
When President Kennedy started the Peace Corps, Mrs. Koeppl joined the staff of Georgetown University and oversaw the training of 110 female volunteers, ages 18 to 60, from 47 states. In 1964, she was instrumental in having part of her Czech past recognized with the release of a U.S. postal stamp observing the centennial of the Sokol Movement in the United States. The movement promoted large-scale gymnastic and sporting competition as cultural events.
"She was very proud of her national heritage of being Czech,'" said Ritter, who recalled her parents hosting high-ranking exiled Czech politicians who lived among other exiled Czechs on Park Road in Northwest Washington.
Mrs. Koeppl grew up in Prague and finished college as communism began to take root there. In 1952, she received a doctorate in physical education from Charles University in Prague. and began teaching physical education and foreign languages. As communism's hold grew stronger, she joined the resistance movement and eventually fled for her safety without even telling her mother.
"She told my grandmother that she was going mushroom picking, a normal act," said Ritter, recounting the story her mother told her a few years ago. "She came here with nothing."
The man who helped her escape from Czechoslovakia to Germany in the mid-'50s became her husband in 1958. Eugene C. Koeppl, a leader in the resistance movement, had been arrested and imprisoned by the Nazis. He came to the United States in the early 1950s and began working in Washington for the U.S. Army. Mr. Koeppl died in 1979.
After communism ended and Czechoslovakia became a democratic republic in 1989, many exiled Czechs returned there. Mrs. Koeppl was growing homesick. In 1996, Ritter took her mother and her grandmother, who had come to live with Mrs. Koeppl, back to Prague. Mrs. Koeppl died there last month of complications from hip surgery, several years after her mother died.
Now, Ritter is packing up the home she left behind and discovering more stories of her mother's life.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
