Cleat Winkler

After his freshman classmates elected Cleat Winkler to the homecoming court at Southridge High School in Huntingburg, Ind., he walked onto the soggy football field at halftime on October 9 to enthusiastic applause. But the cheers that meant the most to the 15-year-old, his parents Steve and Beth Winkler, and his 23-year-old brother actually came a week earlier. On October 2, Cleat “rang the bell” at Riley Hospital to celebrate a clear scan and the end of his treatment for medulloblastoma, the most common of childhood brain tumors.

Cleat was an up-and-coming athlete-captain of the football and wrestling teams in eighth grade-when he was overcome with dizziness and nausea during a wrestling tournament in March 2008. He was determined to finish the competition. Within the week a CAT scan showed a mass in Cleat’s posterior cranial fossa, where the brainstem and cerebellum are located. He was transported to Riley Hospital for treatment.

The can-do attitude he developed as an athlete helped Cleat stay positive through surgery to remove the tumor, radiation, proton beam therapy and chemotherapy. “I didn’t really let my spirits get down,” he says. “I thought of it as a really long fever.”

His attitude also helped the rest of the family stay calm.

“He has so much patience, and he reminds us that we need it too,” said his mom, Beth.

Cleat joined the wrestling team this year and practices as much as his body will tolerate. He has no quickness, strength or balance. His heart goes into overdrive as soon as warm-ups begin. His skin is sensitive to touch, and his leg muscles are in shock from almost two years of atrophy. Many are amazed he made it through the first practice. For Cleat, it is the start of a new beginning.

In his down time, Cleat practices his newly discovered cooking skills. During his illness, he tuned into the Food Network and became a fan of Alton Brown, the unconventional host of Good Eats. At Cleat’s insistence, the family almost always stops at two kitchen stores along I-65 in Edinburgh on their way from Holland, Ind., to Riley Hospital. “Our kitchen is exploding with stuff,” Beth laughs. Cleat and his father even recently competed in a Kansas City barbecue contest.

Cleat is an A student and is active in his church youth group. He named Riley Hospital as the beneficiary of a youth group dance held in his honor and raised nearly $1,000 for the Riley Youth Relay for Life.

“Cleat has been knocked down, and he is back up and fighting,” says his father, the varsity football defensive coordinator at Southridge. His son’s determination prompts Steve Winkler to repeat a tried-and-true sports quote: “A true champion is determined by how hard he works when no one is watching.”