Bill Nichols

Bill competed in several Lakewood Recreation programs while growing up and then coached in both the Recreation Department and Middle School programs for nearly 20 years. He concluded his coaching in 1993 after getting the women's softball program at Notre Dame College (in South Euclid) off the ground in 1991.

At Lakewood High School, where Bill was a 1947 graduate, he played junior varsity basketball and three years of baseball. "My career was limited," he recalled. "What I lacked in size, I made up for in slowness. Not a good combination." He had better luck in softball. He pitched what arguably may have been the first Adult Slow Pitch no-hitter in the Cleveland area in 1949.

After high school and a four-year stretch in the U.S. Navy, he worked at American Greetings and left after eight years as the Assistant Advertising Manager to join The Plain Dealer as a 35-year-old rookie sportswriter. Previously, he had written for the Lakewood Sun Post and West Life on a part-time basis.

Bill and Jean (Havens) Nichols, who were schoolmates at Lakewood High, were married in 1957 and have two children, Wade and Lee Anne, and one grandchild, Andrew.

"Jean has always been a great inspiration for me," said Bill. "She is a terrific artist, who gave me many ideas throughout the years. Also, Jean was a terrific mother, who raised the kids pretty much on her own through their early years while I travelled covering the Cavaliers for The Plain Dealer."

Bill's 30-year career with the PD encompassed more than 9,000 stories of one size or another, at his own estimate. He spent 11 years as the beat writer for the Cavaliers, breaking the story in 1970 that the NBA had awarded the franchise to Cleveland, and covering the 1975-76 "Miracle of Richfield," in which the Cavs clinched the Central Division title and advanced to the second round of the NBA playoffs.

Covering professional sports was only a part of his journalistic career. His other assignments included college hoops, with eight years following the CSU Vikings that included the 1985-86 season when the Vikings reached the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 under coach Kevin Mackey; and 11 years covering the Division III Small Ohio Colleges. In addition to basketball, he wrote about tennis, golf, and harness racing; and many sidebar articles about the "other" Cleveland professional franchises, the Indians and the Browns.

He was also the first American writer to interview the legendary soccer player Pele.

Bill has won many awards for his journalism, but cites the 1980 "Excellence in Journalism" award from the Cleveland Press Club as one of his proudest achievements. He spent a week coaching the Class A New York-Penn League Batavia Trojans (then affiliated with the Cleveland Indians; now called the Clippers and affiliated with the Philadelphia Phillies) and wrote a series of articles on the baseball experience at the Class A level that his peers judged outstanding, a sort of pre- "Bull Durham" look at life in the minors.

While he may have hung up his pen as a sportswriter in 1994, Bill has launched a new career in professional sports. Since 1996, he has been an official scorer of the Cleveland Indians, a position in which his actual employer is the American League.

Since retiring from the Plain Dealer, Bill now teaches journalism and related subjects as an adjunct instructor at his alma mater, Baldwin-Wallace College, Hiram College and John Carroll University. He continues to be active in the Lakewood Kiwanis Club, and served as president of the Lakewood Baseball Commission, the organization that oversees the programs and leagues administered by the Recreation Department, and is on the Board of Directors of the Cleveland Touchdown Club. He admits, however, that he spends as much of his spare time as possible on the golf course. The highlight of 1997 was his golfing holiday in Scotland, in which he played five different courses, including The Old Course at St. Andrews.

Highlights from Bill Nichols' Plain Dealer column are archived at Nichols' Worth on the Lakewood Public Library Web site.

Great moments in Cleveland (sports) history as chronicled by Bill Nichols:
 

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