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Leonard Winkler, son of William and Emma Winkler,
was a 1923 graduate of Sandusky High School. According to the March 2, 1966
issue of the Sandusky Register, Len
Winkler coined the phrase “Blue Streaks” as the nickname for Sandusky High
School athletes. In the early 1920s, Len was a reporter for the Sandusky Star Journal. Another reporter had called Sandusky High
School athletes the “Blue Devils.” After Winkler called them the “Blue
Streaks,” the nickname stuck. For several years Len Winkler resided in an
apartment underneath the home grandstand at Strobel Field. (Now Strobel Field at Cedar Point Stadium.) Click here to read an article at Fandy.com for more details about other
residents of the apartment beneath Strobel Field.
For almost thirty years, Len Winkler was the “Voice
of Sandusky High athletics.” He announced almost every Sandusky High School
football game, basketball game, track and wrestling match from 1936 to 1965.
Due to illness, Len was forced to quit announcing in 1965. At that time he also
resigned his teaching job at Sandusky High School. On October 9, 1965, Sandusky
Mayor William Harbrecht proclaimed that day as “Len Winkler Day.” Later that
night Len Winkler announced his final game at Strobel Field. Len Winkler died
on March 1, 1966 after a lengthy illness. He had been a teacher of industrial
arts, mathematics and physics at Sandusky High School. He was a graduate of
Ohio State University, where he earned an engineering degree. While Len was
employed at the Ohio Public Service Company, he supervised the installation of
public address system at the SHS stadium. Len Winkler was survived by his wife
Mary, two sisters, and several nieces and nephews. Funeral services for Len
Winkler were held at the Charles J. Andres’ Sons Funeral Home, and burial was
at the Castalia Cemetery.
7 comments:
Len Winkler also announced the football games at Strobel Field played by St. Mary's High School's Panthers.
He also taught drivers ed. My first day out he asked who had never driven before and when I raised my hand he put me in the drivers seat. Scary. I still remember some of the things he taught us to do. Well, all of them I guess.
Len Winkler was my uncle but I have few memories of him. He was best known for his role as the announcer but my family remembers him as a naturalist. He was doing "natural landscaping" at his home to a degree that people would come to visit it, to see what could be done in that way. He also was apparently a great storyteller - and a pretty good teacher, too. He and my aunt Mary built a cottage on North Bass Island, which I used to enjoy as a kid and just revisited last summer. It was still there, with the big W on it. I'm so sad that I didn't know him better. He died of Lou Gehrig's Disease when I was only 6.
During the early 1950s, that stadium residence was occupied by Mr. John Bettridge and his family. John was the groundskeeper and maintenance manager of the stadium. Mr. Bettridge was a standout football star of both SHS and OSU; played for the old Cleveland Rams and later the Chicago Bears. His son Edward also played briefly for the Cleveland Browns.
Surely that stadium residence is no longer in use, but it would be interesting to know who was the last family to occupy it, and for what purpose those spaces are now used. Does anyone have any info to offer?
Cecil Trent and family occupied the apartment under Strobel Field Stadium. He was the groundskeeper for several years.
Would it be possible to know when it was that the Trent family occupied the apartment under the Strobel Field stadium? I am curious about the history there. Was it before or after the Bettridge family of the 50s?
A Sandusky Register article from 2010 said that Cecil Trent's father-in-law started living there in 1959, and Trent succeeded him, but that date wasn't given.
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