Stormy Eaton

As a Lobo gymnast and team captain from 1967-71, Mark Dennett “Stormy” Eaton established an extraordinary record of four consecutive WAC individual titles in floor exercise and contributing to three conference team championships. During his junior season, Eaton took second in both the floor exercise and trampoline. Oh yeah, he was also a perfect 4.0 student in Drama and Education.

As a senior, Eaton won the gold medal in the floor exercise at the NCAA Championships and was a national finalist for the Nissen Award honoring the top collegiate senior gymnast.

While on active duty, Eaton was assigned the position of gymnastics coach at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. He was later named assistant coach of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team and acclaimed National Coach of the Year for women’s gymnastics in 1989.

Following years of national service, Eaton and his wife, Patty Williams Eaton, returned to Scottsdale, Ariz., to pursue their dream of starting a “gymnastics business in the desert,” which would become the prominent Desert Devils Gymnastics Training Center.

As the industry grew, so did Eaton’s penchant for adventure. He was a Hawaii Ironman triathlete and took up skydiving, hang-gliding, parasailing, bungee jumping, rock climbing, motorcycle racing, snow and water skiing and small aircraft flying.

In March of 1995, Eaton was tragically killed in a single-engine airplane crash. He was 45.