Bio

Jare T. Klein – Maker of Champions! In the early years of the 1960s you came to Olivet with both a dream and a vision. Today you have accomplished both.

Service to all has been your credo. As a teacher, coach, director of athletics, and as a member of innumerable committees, you have served Olivet with distinction. Yet, despite a schedule of day and night involvement, you raised and educated five outstanding children. To your wife, Marcia, you have support and encouragement as she trained for advanced degrees. Your competition often takes you to Division II schools. Sometimes you even defeat the “B” team of your alma mater, Notre Dame.

Having won many of the MIAA wrestling championships, your interests then turned to international competition. You are a man for all seasons: in the Winter you coach and train the Olivet “grapplers;” in the Spring you coach tennis, in early Summer you take composite teams to Europe, to the United Kingdom, or to South America; and in the Fall, you give your best to the classroom. Your record of 426 wins has no equal in all of the MIAA wrestling history; and your .813 winning percentage is tops in the NCAA Division III. The display cabinets overflow with awards and trophies, including 10 MIAA league titles.

You represent Olivet nationally as the treasurer for the NCAA. As story-teller and role model, you recruit young men to learn to win, even in a “pit” beneath the stage of MacKay Gymnasium. You have long continued your support of undergraduate programs at both the collegiate and high school level by serving as teacher, coach and referee.

Today, we who stand in the shadow of your accomplishments salute you, and do herewith enroll you into the Olivet College Athletic Hall of Fame, this 16th day of October, 1994. Congratulations!