Inductees

Charlie attended the University of Iowa where he played football from 1956-61 and was a member of their 1958 National Championship Team and the 1959 Hawkeye Team that won the Rose Bowl. In his senior year, he played in the All-American Bowl, in the Copper Bowl, and in the Hula Bowl. Charlie coached football at Bella Vista High School from 1962-87. Throughout this period, Lee coached Bella Vista wrestling for 22 years with an overall record of 248-28-1. He led his teams to six Top Five California State places, with three 2nd-place finishes.

His teams won five Sac-Joaquin Section Championships, with eight individual CIF State Champions and 15 State Medalists, including California’s first 3-time champion, his son David Lee who also won an NCAA championship for Wisconsin in 1989. During his son’s years, Bella Vista went 2nd, 3rd, 2nd and 2nd in the State Meet. Charlie was named the National High School Coach of the Year in 1979 by Scholastic Wrestling News. He started the Bella Vista Invitational Tournament and hosted it for 13 years, drawing over 1,000 wrestlers from across the country and even from other nations.

Lee helped to form the Sacramento Area Wrestling Association in 1972, and he was their first President, serving in that capacity for three years. He continued to work with SAWA through 1984, and he led 11 of their wrestlers to the Western Nationals in Montana, bringing back the first national wrestling title in the Sacramento area. In 1977, Lee and his wife, Ralphene, created the Sacramento Superstars, an outstanding kids wrestling program in the area, and he led them to three National Team Championships with four Super Stars on the 1979 World Schoolboy Wrestling Team. Lee’s son wrote, “My dad had a unique style of coaching. His style was less about teaching technique and more about instilling a belief in yourself and a desire to always give your best effort. A lot of his early teams won on sheer guts and toughness.

By the time the Super Stars occupied the high school ranks, we had the experience and technique to go with the discipline and toughness.” Nancy Schultz wrote that “Dave Schultz leaned on the Lee family for guidance and support in many ways. At the height of his career and international success, it was from Charlie Lee that he took advice for his strategy and game plan for some of his toughest matches … and that Dave drew his clues of successful balance of wrestling and family life.”