Cheryl Klein-Obelar

Induction Year: 2018

Category: Track & Field

Location: Bellport

Cheryl Klein competed at Bellport High School and the University of Houston. She won four Suffolk County championships in shot put and discus and won three straight Empire State Game titles in the same events. As a senior, she won at the prestigious Penn Relays. Klein participated in and won three Colgate Women’s Games from 1981-1984.

In 1984, she set a state record at 49’8.5, which stood until 2010. Klein still holds the Suffolk County shot put record for more than 30 years. She attended the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs in 1983 to work with the top eight high school throwers in the nation.

Klein threw for five years at Houston and still holds the school’s shot put record at 53’, 2 ¾, the discus record at 177’5, and indoor record at 54’ 8 ¾. Here’s a fun note: she’s the only person in the history of the University of Houston to earn at 300-pound bench shirt from the football program after putting up 315 pounds with the head football coach as witness.

In 1988, she took first place in the Women’s Power Lifting Nationals, benching 253, squatting 507, and 424 on the deadlift. Today she works in law enforcement as a Sherriff in Guilford County, North Carolina.