Heinz Kluetmeier, photographer who captured iconic moments in sports history for Sports Illustrated, dies at 82

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) -- Even if you couldn't see him, you knew where he had been.

That was how Jessie Kluetmeier and her sisters remembered their father, Heinz, coming home from some sporting event he had covered in some part of the world, like Muhammad Ali's 1975 heavyweight title fight against Chuck Wepner or the 1983 NBA Finals, showing them some of the photos that would likely run in Sports Illustrated the following week.

It was a job that often kept Kluetmeier on the road some 200 days a year, but it was this passion that drove him to capturing some of the greatest images in sports history, seen in the 125 Sports Illustrated covers he shot over the course of decades.

"He always wanted to do a good job," Jessie said. "He always wanted to make a great picture."

Heinz Kluetmeier, whose images graced the pages of the country's preeminent sports magazine for nearly 50 years, died Tuesday morning in New York following complications from a stroke he had suffered a couple of years prior, his family confirmed. He was 82.

Originally from Berlin, Kluetmeier immigrated to the U.S. when he was 9 years old, settling with his family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The young Kluetmeier took quickly to photography, shooting pictures that would be run by the Associated Press when he was 15. Graduating with a degree from Dartmouth College in 1965, Kluetmeier spent a couple of years working at Inland Steel. But the pull of the camera was too much for him, deciding to take the plunge and pursue his passion as a career, first as a photographer for the The Milwaukee Journal before joining Time, Inc. in 1969, where he shot photos that ran in Life and Sports Illustrated.

By 1979, Kluetmeier had joined SI as a full-time staff photographer, where he covered countless games and sporting events around the world until his retirement in 2016, his final images for the magazine being that year's Kentucky Derby.

One of his most iconic photos was the "Miracle on Ice," showing the U.S. men's hockey team's victory over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics. To this day, it's the only Sports Illustrated cover to not feature a headline.

"It didn't need it," Kluetmeier told SI in 2008. "Everyone in America knew what happened."

Kluetmeier, who twice served as SI's chief of photography, is credited with innovating the way sports were shot, especially with underwater photography. In fact, it was Kluetmeier's photography that captured swimmer Michael Phelps actually beating Milorad Cavic in the 100-meter butterfly during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, despite Cavic appearing to win above water.

Kluetmeier was on hand for several great moments in Alabama sports as well, from the 1979 Sugar Bowl where the Crimson Tide barely held off Penn State to win the game, as well as the 1973 Talladega 500.

Among his many honors, Kluetmeier was the first photographer to be inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2017.

"He worked harder than anyone," Jessie said. "His work was so much of who he was, and I think he took pleasure in it."

Roy S. Johnson, columnist and director of content development at AL.com whose first journalism job from 1978-82, paid tribute to his former colleague in a Facebook post Tuesday.

"He was daring, bold, and innovating before sports was ready for such," Johnson wrote. "Some of the camera angles you regularly see now were launched by Heinz - before he had permission to do so. Sometimes I take for granted what a blessing it was to share the hallways of my youthful days in this profession with some of the best ever. Onward, my friend."

Despite the renown his work gave him, Kluetmeier kept his philosophy on work simple over the years.

“Photojournalism is telling a story," Kluetmeier told former Dartmouth sports information director Jack DeGange in an interview published in 2007. "It's taking pictures of something as it evolves without controlling it, without being anything but being there and looking at it through your point of view.”

Funeral arrangements are still pending.

Here are some of Heinz Kluetmeier's photos depicting Alabama sports