Inductees
Ralph Valle
Year: 2014
Gender: Male
About Ralph:
After wrestling and playing football (All-League) at Montebello High School, Valle wrestled at Cal State Fullerton and at Cal State Los Angeles where he was a conference runner-up and an NCAA Regional finalist at 158 pounds. During his sophomore year at ELAC in 1975, the team placed fifth in the State Championships and he was the team captain.
At CSU-LA, the team was runner-up in the California Collegiate Athletic Association, and Ralph was team captain and voted the team’s most outstanding wrestler. In freestyle wrestling, Valle was first at the USWF State Open, third at the AAU State Open, and then first at the S.P.A. AAU Grand Championship in the Open Division.
Valle began his high school coaching career in California at Arroyo in 1979. After serving as assistant coach at El Rancho from 1980-84, he was head coach at John Glenn High School from 1986-1997, winning 10 Suburban League championships with more than 200 dual match victories. At Glenn, his teams won CIF-SS Dual Meet championships in 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996 for Division IV. The team also won CIF-SS Regional championships in 1993, 1995 and 1996, finishing as runner-up in 1991, 1994 and 1997. He was then head coach at Garfield from 1997-2000.
Since 1995, Valle has been head coach of the wrestling program at East Los Angeles College, following Ben Bohlander who retired. His teams have enjoyed three Top 10 California Community College State Championships finishes in 1999, 2007 and 2011. Ralph has coached 32 individual State place winners and 14 All Americans including two State champions and six Academic All-Americans.
Valle has been active in the South Central Wrestling Officials Association since 2004, and he currently serves as president. He has also been active in the California Community College Wrestling Coaches Association and in the National Wrestling Coaches Association. Ralph has officiated many league and CIF-SS individual and dual meet championships.
At least six of his former wrestlers are currently head coaches at California high schools such as Glenn, Bell, Downey, Norwalk and Schurr. Valle has worked as an educator and school counselor at Glenn, Garfield and ELAC. He has been married 20 years and has two daughters now attending college.