It was supposed to be a one-year fling when Merle Levin walked into the converted barbershop which was the office for the Fenn College Athletic Department in 1955, found a typewriter, and assumed the part-time duties of the school’s first sports publicist. Somehow the Glenville High grad, an ex-sports editor of the University of Michigan Daily, needed 38 years to get the sports writing bug out of his system. The part time sports publicity job evolved into a full time post as Administrative Assistant to the Athletic Director when the state transformed Fenn into Cleveland State University in 1964. He became the department’s utility man, handling the duties of numerous jobs yet to be filled by the understaffed office. Later he would play an active role in helping to form a mid-major athletic conference, the Mid-Continent, for CSU teams to play in, paving the way to compete for berths in NCAA and NIT basketball tourneys.  Along the way, Levin triggered the start-up of the school’s first endowed athletic scholarships, helped create CSU’s Athletic Hall of Fame, and filled advisory roles in the planning of CSU’s Physical Education Center and acclaimed Convocation Center. He also made time as Sports Information Director to oversee media activities for five NCAA National Swimming and Diving Championships hosted by CSU, plus numerous regional tournaments in basketball, soccer, and wrestling and to produce several team publications named best in nation by his peers while his job title morphed into Assistant Athletic Director. Calling it a career in 1992, he became Executive Director of SMACO (Sports Media Association of Cleveland and Ohio), helping to raise nearly $500,000 for charity in the next decade. He and his wife, Dolores, make their home in Gates Mills.

Deceased 2009