Maple Heights High School is a public
high school located in
Maple Heights, Ohio, southeast of
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
. It graduated its first class in 1925. It was the first high school in America to offer a credit class in
popular culture studies, created in 1975. It also offered a
broadcast journalism class, ''Television Journalism'', which produced a long-running
public-access television cable TV
Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broadc ...
program entitled ''Maple Schools Today'', which ran on several
Cleveland Ohio cable outlets from 1984 through 2002.
A completely new high school building opened in 2013, replacing one that dated back 90 years. A new stadium with artificial turf and an all-weather track opened in 2014.
Athletics
Maple Heights High School athletics is best known for the success of the boys' wrestling teams. They won 10 state championships in a 19-year period from 1956–1974. They were led by legendary coach Mike Milkovich. Milkovich played a role in a sports brawl that led eventually to a
U.S. Supreme Court case,
Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co.
''Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co.'', 497 U.S. 1 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case that rejected the argument that a separate opinion privilege existed against libel. It was seen by legal commentators as the end of an era that began w ...
, an important free speech case.
The team nickname is the Mustangs.
Ohio High School Athletic Association State Championships
*
Wrestling – 1956, 1957, 1962, 1963, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1974
* Football – 2010
Notable alumni
*
Chuck Findley
Charles B. Findley (born December 13, 1947 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania) is an American trumpet player known for his diverse work as a session musician. He also plays other brass instruments such as flugelhorn and trombone. His technical abilities ...
– Class of 1965. trumpet player in
The Tonight Show Band,
Steely Dan
Steely Dan is an American rock band founded in 1971 in New York by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Initially the band had a stable lineup, but in 1974, Becker and Fagen retired from live ...
and
The Wrecking Crew.
*
Bruce E. Grooms – retired vice admiral in the United States Navy.
*
Len Kosmalski, NBA basketball player (
Kansas City Kings)
*
Jim Krusoe, novelist, poet, and short story writer.
*
Frank Mestnik (born 1938), class of 1953, professional
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
player (
St. Louis Cardinals and
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...
).
*
Dale Mohorcic, class of 1974, professional baseball player
*
Ric Ocasek (1944–2019), class of 1963, lead singer of
the Cars.
*
Mary Oliver –
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
and
American Book Award winning poet.
*
Richard Quinn (born 1986), professional football player (
Denver Broncos and
Washington Redskins).
*
Evelyn Svec Ward
Evelyn Svec Ward (née Evelyn Svec; 1921–1989) was an American fiber artist, she was known for her abstract textile work. She was influenced by Mexican handicrafts and Mexican traditional fiber. She worked at the Cleveland Museum of Art in the ...
(1921–1989), class of 1939, fiber artist.
Notes and references
External links
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{{authority control
High schools in Cuyahoga County, Ohio
Public high schools in Ohio