When Jeff Kluge began walking, he had four older brothers waiting to introduce him to sports.
With their then single mother, Sally, working days in the Janesville School District, the introduction those four male siblings gave him wasn’t always filled with tender, loving brotherly care.
“They always beat the hell out of me,” Jeff recalls.
But having Steve, David, Tim and Jim show him the tougher side of life paid off dividends when Jeff reached high school. At Parker High in Janesville, Jeff put on a show as the Vikings’ quarterback in football, guard in basketball and catcher on the baseball team.
When he was graduated in 1979, he had earned the maximum nine letters and the American Legion Athletic Medal as the best senior athlete at Parker High.
A promising baseball career was cut short in college when he tore an elbow ligament in his throwing arm.
On Saturday, May 18, Kluge will be inducted into the Janesville Sports Hall of Fame. He will be joined in the Class of 2024 by Jack Hoag, Pat Miller, Jane Dooley and Matt McCulloch. The induction ceremony will be at the Janesville Country Club.
For the Kluge boys, sports were a major part of their childhood. The boys were eight years apart, with Steve being the oldest.
The Kluges lived in a house on South Marion Avenue on the south side of the city. The Kluge brothers and their neighborhood friends turned the area into a sports complex.
Their mother, Sally, didn’t mind. She was an avid Milwaukee Brewers fan and volunteered for many seasons with the then-Beloit Snappers at Pohlman Field.
“We actually dug up our backyard,” Kluge said. “We put in a pitcher’s mound, a batter’s box and built a backstop. One of our neighbors two doors down had a cyclone fence, so we made a baseball field.
“Looking back at it, most parents would have had fit,” Kluge said. “So all the kids in the neighborhood would come over.”
The property was name “Simebo Field” by the older Kluge brothers. The neighborhood complex didn’t end there.
“There was an empty church field across the street, so we played football there,” Kluge said. “And we all were playing basketball all the time. That’s how I started.
“We had a great childhood,” he said.
On to high school
Kluge was talented. In 1975 while at Franklin Junior High, he went out for track. He set the school record in the pole vault at 11 feet, 3 inches. The pole vault requires speed, strength and agility and is not an easy event to conquer.
“Jim McGrath was my coach, and he was a great coach,” Kluge said. “I was determined, so it all worked out.”
Freshmen did not attend the Janesville high schools in Kluge’s day. When he did arrive at Parker as a sophomore, he went right to work.
He started at quarterback on the football team under head coach Ron Cramer and assistants Dick Lambrecht and Don Barnabo.
Because of injuries to two upperclassmen, Kluge saw action as a sophomore.
“I got my butt kicked,” he said. “I haven’t been right since.”
He then laughed.
“Actually, I’m the only Kluge boy that played football,” he said. “My mother said, ‘None of you boys will ever play football’. I don’t know why she let me, but she probably gave up.”
He earned All-Big Eight Conference honorable mention honors as a junior in 1978 and was the full-time starter his final two seasons.
“I loved football,” he said.
Kluge was a three-time letter winner in basketball playing under Gene Van Galder and Dan Madden. He was the Vikings’ Most Valuable Player his senior season. He was awarded the Father Strange Award as the school’s best free-throw shooter.
“There was one game against one of the Madison schools that I was 21 of 21 from the free-throw line,” Kluge said. “Looking back at that, it’s like ‘Wow’.”
Spring was the time Kluge really looked forward to. Baseball was his main sport.
He was the Vikings’ MVP both his junior and senior seasons and earned All-Big Eight first-team honors at catcher those seasons.
His brothers again had a hand in making Jeff a catcher.
“Both Jim and Tim were pitchers,” Jeff said. “They told me to get my butt behind the plate and catch it.”
Jeff was 6-foot tall and weighed around 200 pounds in high school, so he was a physical presence behind the plate.
“I was good at blocking wild pitches,” Kluge said. “And I was a strong hitter and had a strong arm for throws to second.”
Kluge earned honorable mention all-state honors after his junior and senior seasons.
After Kluge’s senior season, Madden said he was the best catcher he ever had at Parker. Madden was Parker’s head baseball coach for 26 seasons, including the 1977 WIAA state championship season, and was a 1992 Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association and 1998 Janesville Sports halls of fame inductee.
“He wasn’t your typical catcher,” Madden said. “He was an athletic catcher. He was a leader. You have to be a leader back there.
“He was well-respected by his teammates.”
Kluge earned Parker’s American Legion Athletic Medal after his senior year. The honor is given to the best senior athlete.
“That’s the thing,” Madden said. “Nowadays, it’s even rarer, but even then, to play three sports and being very proficient in every one of them was a great accomplishment.
“He was a rarity.”
Good bloodlines
Kluge had the background to excel in baseball.
The Kluge boys’ grandfather on his father’s side of the family was Wattie Holm, who played seven seasons from 1924 to 1934—he missed the 1932 and 1933 seasons--and in 436 games at third base and outfield for the St. Louis Cardinals.
In the Cardinals’ first World Series appearance in 1926, Holm batted leadoff against the New York Yankees, who featured Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. The Cardinals won the series 4-3.
After high school, Kluge was unsure of what he wanted to do. He had offers to play baseball at four-year colleges but decided to attend Southeastern (Illinois) Junior College. In his first season there, he tore a tendon in his right elbow and left the game.
Post college
Kluge has lived in Sanford, Florida, for seven years since moving there from Tennessee, where he had lived for nine years.
“I’ve moved where there is no winter at all,” he joked.
Kluge is a project manager for a commercial roofing company. He has been involved in commercial roofing for 35 years.
He moved to Texas upon leaving Southeastern Illinois Junior College after his elbow injury. He was a painting contractor and lived in Carrollton, Texas, with fellow Janesville friends Bob Drew, Joe Dilley, Dennis Ryan, John Carpenter and Dave Carpenter.
The Carpenters joined the Dallas Police Department. Drew was going to college down there, and Dilley was in the Air Force and stationed at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth.
“We all lived together in a three-bedroom apartment,” Kluge said. “It’s amazing any one of us survived that.”
The 62-year-old Kluge is looking forward to getting back to the Janesville area for the induction banquet. Brother Tim Kluge lives in Edgerton, while Jim lives in Fort Atkinson. Steve Kluge lives in Titusville, Florida, and David Kluge lives in Jacksonville, Florida.
“I’m anxious to see a lot of people I haven’t seen in a long time,” Jeff said.
There is little doubt stories about those early days at “Simebo Field” will come up throughout the weekend — along with a lot of brotherly love.
Most Popular
Comments / 0