A solid, but hardly sensational wrestling career at Cleveland State University—a 56-11-2 record, a school record 14 pins as a senior bulwark of the nations ninth-ranked team when he qualified for NCAA Division I Nationals but he won just one match before bowing out—gave virtually no hint that the Vikings were nurturing an Olympic silver […]
A three-sport at Cleveland West High, where he captained the baseball, basketball and football teams, he appeared on track to a professional baseball career after earning All-Ohio diamond honors at West in 1964 and subsequently playing for two years in the Cleveland Indians farm system. Instead, his future in sports took a sharp right turn […]
A native Clevelander who starred in football, basketball and track at Cleveland West High from 1945 to 1948, he stayed on to give his hometown reason to continue cheering his feats at Case Tech. and continue to cheer it did as he literally fashioned a Hall of Fame career for the Rough Riders from 1948 […]
The son of an amateur sports car racer turned the lessons he learned on the inner workings of a car while growing up in Medina, OH into a smashingly successful career as one of the nation’s leading race car drivers. Drove his way into super start status by winning three CART championships in 1985, 1987 […]
A legend before his time, he came to Cleveland to enroll at Cleveland State University with a storied reputation as a New York basketball wonder who had bypassed his high school team to make a name in AAU and playground circles. Nothing he did in a Viking uniform diminished his stature. As a freshman in […]
Founder, Chairmen and CEO of the Cleveland-based sports and entertainment conglomerate International Management Group (IMG), he is recognized worldwide as the pioneering force behind the development of the sports marketing industry, an industry which revolutionized sports by establishing athletic representation as a distinct business. A native of Chicago he was a standout golfer at the […]
One of Cleveland West High’s finest athletes, he led the Cowboys to the 1952 City High School Baseball Championship Game, only to lose the title clash in an 11-inning duel at Municipal Stadium. However, better days on the Stadium mound were ahead. The most memorable of those appearances came exactly a wearing a Los Angeles […]
He walked into his first Cleveland Browns camp in 1975 as a non-drafted free agent from Duke University where he had undergone five position shifts before the Blue Devils anointed him an offensive tackle in his junior year. It didn’t take the Browns nearly that long to decide the one-time North Carolina high school quarterback […]
Five seasons in a Cleveland Cavaliers uniform were all the 6-11 Racine, WI native needed to establish himself as one of the finest players in team history. The verdict was first delivered in 1991 when fans voted him the starting center on the “Classic Cavs Team” covering the club’s first 20 years, and re-enforced a […]
Cleveland-born and raised, he parlayed a solid athletic career at Warrensville Heights High and a series of strong summer performances for highly respected sandlot teams into a baseball scholarship at perennial baseball power Arizona State. When he was named the MVP of the 1965 College World Series, won by ASU, the door was opened to […]