One of the best handball players of his era in the United States, he won the National AAU Junior Singles Championship in 1932, the National AAU Junior Doubles Championship in 1928 and the National AAU Senior Doubles Championship in 1933. In 1934 he added the National YMCA Double Championship to his collection. In the period […]
A two-time Olympic champion, he won his first gold medal for the United States in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. He repeated as the Olympic bantamweight champion in the 1960 Rome Olympics, lifting 760 pounds to give the U.S. its only weightlifting medal in that competition. His 237-pound snatch at Rome equaled the word record. Although […]
Native of Cleveland who migrated to Israel in 1970, and in September 1972, while representing his new country in the Munich Olympics, lost his life to terrorists along with ten other members of the Israeli delegation. U.S. national Intercollegiate Champion at Tulane University in 1965 and a member of the United States weightlifting team in […]
First ever to win national Highlander Class championship fives times, capturing the title in 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1977. Was national runnerup in 1976, 1978 and 1979. Also won the Great Lakes Highlander Class championship in 1977. He was the Edgewater Yacht Club’s Highlander Class champion for 11 consecutive years and was acclaimed EYC’s […]
In 1966 he capped a great racing career by winning the Transatlantic race to Travemunde, Germany, sailing his 47-foot, custom built yawl, Indigo IV. He celebrated his 77th birthday in mid-ocean in that race. The owner of a series of fine cruising sail yachts, all named Indigo, he was a perennial winner in area races, […]
In his first year of driving offshore power boats (1975) he scored enough points in the first ten races of a scheduled 11-race series to win the National Offshore Power Boat Racing Championships of the American Power Boat Association without running the final race. Later became the APBA vice president for offshore racing.
After leading the Dandee Patches and Blepp-Coobs Sporting Goods teams to seven titles in the Lakewood Recreation League, he was appointed to select and coach an AAU team representing Cleveland in the 1939 national hockey tournament. Playing under the banner of The American Legion, the underdog Clevelanders won their first game in overtime and their […]
Joined the Cleveland Barons on Christmas night, 1948, and remained with the team for 7-1/2 seasons during which time the Barons won the American Hockey League’s Calder Cup three times. Traded to Rochester for the 1956-57 season, played with the club for two full seasons and part of a third. Returned to the Barons in […]
Brought up to the Cleveland Barons to bolster the defense for the 1957 playoffs, he remained for 16 seasons. Set an American Hockey League record by playing in 526 consecutive games and captained the Barons for eight years. Was voted the team’s Most Valuable Player four times by his teammates and three times by the […]
One of Cleveland’s finest bowlers during the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, he and his partner, Steve Nagy, set a record of 1453 in the doubles event of the American Bowling Congress Tournament in 1952 which still stood in 1981. Klares contributed a 755 three-game series to that score. He finished fifth in the all-events of […]