Former coach receives honor from wrestling hall of fame

Special to ViewFormer Valley High School wrestling coach Duane Loesch holds a plaque during a ceremony in Reno on Oct. 3, where he was inducted into the Nevada Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. Advertisement

His favorite motto is: Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Retired coach Duane Loesch has been preparing for his own opportunity for decades. On Oct. 3, he was inducted into the Nevada Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Loesch and his wife, Patty, were flown to Reno, where he accepted the award.

"I was overwhelmed just to be considered," he said. "I couldn't believe I'd done anything to deserve that kind of recognition."

Duane Loesch came to Las Vegas in 1966, a newlywed who'd signed a contract with the Clark County School District for a $5,600-a-year teaching position.

Besides teaching science classes, he was an assistant wrestling coach at Valley High School, 2839 Burnham Ave., from 1966-68. He became head coach in 1969, a position he held through 1976.

Duane Loesch's Valley wresting team was the Vikings. His mat men won 51 straight dual meets and 18 tournaments from 1968-74. His grapplers were undefeated for five years in a row and dominated their high school conference as state champs.

"I remember having 2,000 people crowd into the gym at Valley," said Mike Juarez, an assistant coach at the time. "That tells you how exciting wrestling was in the 1970s."

Juarez said kazoos were passed out to the students, who cheered on the wrestlers with them.

Larry Moses was a history teacher at Valley in the 1970s and is a longtime friend of Duane Loesch. He said the coach was very involved in his team's lives, sometimes taking a student under his wing. He, too, remembered how the wrestling team brought out the crowds.

"Wrestling is usually considered a minor sport," Moses said. "But at Valley, it was a premier sport."

One of the photos Duane Loesch has from his coaching days shows him with a black eye, the result of his coaching style.

"I wrestled with the kids," he said. "I didn't just blow the whistle."

He said the sport infuses one with self-confidence and carries over into day-to-day interactions. Wrestling is 25 percent desire, he said, 50 percent intelligence and 25 percent physical ability.

"It instills a sense of pride, of motivation," Duane Loesch said. "The coach can't go out there and win their match for them, they have to do it for themselves."

The desire to win, he said, will dictate who wins in a match of two wrestlers with identical skills and power.

His daughter, Amanda Relei, a dental hygienist, recalled how growing up, her father's office walls were covered with plaques of achievements, and the shelves were filled with wrestling trophies. It's still that way in his Sun City Summerlin home. In fact, Duane Loesch wondered aloud where he was going to hang his new plaque from the Hall of Fame.

"My father is the same person whether he's around 100 people or just by himself," Relei said. "His inner character doesn't change when no one's looking."

Duane Loesch was head coach at Clark High School, 4291 W. Pennwood Ave., from 1978-80. He also officiated for three years while he took a hiatus from coaching. The reason was personal: Relei, then 4, was battling leukemia. Experimental treatments gave her a 50-50 chance, and she pulled through.

After that break, Duane Loesch took the position of Clark High School athletic director and held it from 1982-89.

He retired from coaching in 2003 and currently is chairman of the science department at The Meadows School, 8601 Scholar Lane.

Contact Summerlin View reporter and South Summerlin reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 387-2949.