Norbert “Nobby” Lewandowski could have served as the poster boy for Cleveland’s lauded amateur baseball program in the mid-20th century. He began competing in the program’s Class F league as an elementary school student in Cleveland’s Slavic Village and worked his way up to the Plain Dealer-sponsored AAA league. Along the way, using the skills he developed on the sandlots, he earned four baseball letters at Benedictine High, which in turn earned him Kent State University’s first baseball scholarship and four more letters there. He pitched in the Pittsburgh Pirates farm system from 1960-1962, then returned to the sandlots in 1963 to start for perennial league champion Wenham Truckers until 1970. During that time he was called “the most dominant pitcher in Ohio amateur baseball during the 1960’s era” by a Plain Dealer sportswriter.
A nationally known sportswriter, Hal Lebovitz entertained and informed Cleveland sports fans for more than 50 years with his incisive reporting talents. A graduate of Glenville High and Western Reserve University, he became a full-time writer for the Cleveland News in 1946, covering high school sports. In 1950 he became the paper’s baseball beat writer, then moved to the Plain Dealer with the same assignment when the News folded in 1960 and began a 20-year reign as the PD sports editor in 1964. His highly popular PD sports columns continued thereafter in a chain of papers serving much of Greater Cleveland. So did his “Ask Hal, The Referee” columns, which appeared nationally in The Sporting News from 1947 to 1993. The column drew on Hal’s vast situational sports knowledge acquired through many years as an umpire and referee.
Deceased 2005
A member of the U.S. National and International Figure Skating Teams from 1986 through 1998, Tonia Kwiatkowski ranks among the very best ice performers ever to come out of the Cleveland area. She earned a berth as an alternate on the 1998 United States Olympic Figure Skating Team to climax a career which included appearances in the World Championships in 1993, 1996 and 1998, two World University Games championships (1991 and 1995), a silver medal in the 1996 Senior U.S. National Championships, and three bronze medals in the U.S. Nationals, one at the Junior Level in 1987 and two at the Senior Level in 1993 and 1995. Considered one of the best liked and most respected competitors of her era in her sport, she is a graduate of Lakewood High School and Baldwin-Wallace College.
In an era when Cleveland was renowned for producing talented young boxing prospects, Jackie Keough ranked among the best. While just 17, the West Tech High School product advanced to the 1943 finals of the city Golden Gloves lightweight championship. The next year he came back to win the Northeastern Ohio Golden Gloves welterweight title. After spending 27 months in the Navy during World War II, he returned home in 1947 to win the national AAU welterweight championship in Chicago’s Tournament of Champions after winning the welterweight crown for the East in the National East-West Confrontation in New York as well as a second Cleveland Golden Gloves title. This prompted the Plain Dealer to hail him as “the best professional prospect to come out of Cleveland since Jimmy Bivins.” After 200 amateur bouts, he turned pro in 1946.
Diana Munz is arguably the greatest swimmer to come out of the Cleveland area. Raised in Moreland Hills and a 2000 graduate of Chagrin Falls High School, she owns three Olympic medals: a gold as a member of the winning 800-meter freestyle relay team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, a silver for the 400-meter freestyle at Sydney and a bronze for the 800-meter freestyle at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Munz got her start as an age group swimmer for the Lake Erie Silver Dolphins. It did not take long for her to advance to senior competition, where she won 21 national titles. Diana’s swimming career took her all over the world. Some examples: at the World Aquatic Championships in Perth, Australia in 2001, she won silver in the 800-meter freestyle; in 1997 at the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, she won silver in the 1500-meter freestyle, bronze in the 400-meter freestyle and bronze in the 800-meter freestyle; in 2003 at the World Aquatic Championships in Barcelona, Spain, she won silver in the 800-meter freestyle and bronze in the 400-meter freestyle. Munz is a graduate of John Carroll University with a degree in communications. She retired from competitive swimming in 2005. In August 2006, she married Palmer DePetro. The couple have a daughter, Sydney Gabriella DePetro, and live in Lyndhurst.
The Cleveland Skating Club was home to Hayes Jenkins when he began making his move in the world of men’s figure skating. In 1948, he was the U.S. junior national champion. Growing up in Akron, Cleveland saw plenty of Jenkins until he moved to Colorado in 1953 to attend Colorado College. He had been a member of five U.S. World Figure Skating teams up until then, finishing fourth at the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway. That set in motion a run of four consecutive U.S. and world championships from 1953 to 1956. At the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina, Italy, he put the finishing touch on his remarkable career by winning the gold medal. His younger brother, David, won the bronze medal. Four years later they became bonded gold brothers when David won the 1960 gold medal. Retiring from the ice to attend Harvard Law School, he married 1960 women’s gold medalist Carol Heiss in 1960. Returning to Akron to work in legal affairs for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, he and Carol raised three children and ten grandchildren. Like his wife, he has been honored by numerous organizations throughout the skating world. He retired from Goodyear as Assistant Secretary and Assistant General Counsel in 1998, after which he and Carol moved to Westlake to be closer to his her coaching site. For nearly 50 years, they have been the area’s first family of figure skating.
She was the Golden Girl of ladies figure skating for nearly a decade. The world took early notice of Carol Heiss Jenkins when she was the 1951 U.S. Novice champion and the 1952 national junior champion. The following year, she became the first woman to land a double axel in competition. The native of New York City was only warming up when she won the first of five consecutive world championships in 1956, but had to settle for a silver medal at the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina, Italy. There was no stopping her after that as the United States and world championships belonged to her from 1957 to 1960, with her career culminating in a gold medal performance at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. She stayed in the public eye for a time with the distinctive movie “Snow White and the Three Stooges” in 1961 and as a television commentator. Her marriage to gold medalist Hayes Jenkins in 1960 brought her to Akron. Two decades later, the lure of the ice took her to Lakewood’s Winterhurst Rink where she became one of the nation’s top skating teachers. During more than 25 years at Winterhurst, she has coached internationally ranked skaters Tonia Kwiatkowski, Jeni Meno, Lisa Ervin, Timothy Goebel, Miko Ando and Parker Pennington. Residing in Westlake with her husband, she was a 2001 inductee to the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame.
One of the first Cleveland natives to win the Ohio high school state championship (1945) and the first player to win four tennis letters at Michigan State University, Robert Malaga captained the U.S. Junior Davis Cup Team. He competed in numerous major tournaments, including the USLTA National Championships at Forest Hills and won several Cleveland City championships in singles, doubles and mixed doubles.
Gretchen Kluter was a member of the 1955 U.S. Pan-American Games Team, winning a gold medal as a member of the 400-meter freestyle relay team and placing fifth in the 100-meter freestyle. She was also a member of the 1956 AAU All-American Women’s Swim Team and the 1972 All American Masters Swim Team. Gretchen was the first alternate for the 100 meter freestyle on the 1956 U.S. Olympic Swim Team, and set three national Junior Olympic records between 1953 and 1955.
Christine Kluter set American records in the 100-yard backstroke (long course) and the 110-yard backstroke in 1957. She was named to the 1959 U.S. Pan-American Games team and finished third in the 100-meter backstroke. Christine set five national age group records between 1954 and 1957 and finished in the top four in nine races in the national open championships between 1956 and 1960. She set national Masters records (30-34 age group) in the 50-yard and 50-meter backstroke in 1974.