Edinboro journalism alumnus awarded

Kevin Kleps, assistant editor at Crain’s Cleveland Business, has “always been a sports fanatic,” he explained.

Kleps, an Edinboro University graduate, took first place for “Best Body of Work” in the 2018 Alliance of Area Business Publishers (AABP) Editorial Excellence Awards. 

In addition, he won first place in the “General News Category” for his sports business coverage, as well as first in the “Digital Media Category” for his daily blog at the 2018 Press Club of Cleveland Excellence in Journalism Awards. 

Growing up, Kleps not only liked to watch, but also played sports such as baseball, basketball and football. 

This passion for sports fueled him while at Edinboro, where he wrote for The Spectator, covering a variety of teams on campus. 

The experience Kleps garnered from writing for Edinboro’s paper allowed him to land an internship with The Meadville Tribune during his final semester of school. There, he was given more opportunities to branch out and cover a variety of sports. Mainly, he covered sports at the local level, such as high school football games, as well as games at Allegheny College. But, he also received a chance to cover sports nationally at a Pittsburgh Steelers game.

The internship quickly turned into a four-year stint, a time in which he continued his sports coverage and became more interested in column-type sports writing. 

His time at The Meadville Tribute prepared him for his next position, assistant sports editor at The News-Herald in the northeast Cleveland area, a position he would hold for 13 years.

Then, in 2013, he joined Crain’s Cleveland Business as their next assistant editor with his own daily sports business blog, the latter of which has gained him his recent acclaim. 

Kleps lent this advice for those who may be considering a career in writing: “If you don’t enjoy writing, do something else…really, just know what you’re getting into. Its not an easy career; you work nights, weekends and weird hours.”

Nevertheless, Kleps stressed that despite all the difficulties, he did not do his work with the goal of earning awards. It’s because it’s what he wanted to do. “Recognition is always nice…but you do it for enjoyment, because you like to write, because you like to tell stories.”

Nathan Brennan can be reached at edinboro.spectator@gmail.com.

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