LIHUE — Kauai High School assistant wrestling coach Paul La Blanc was recognized for years of coaching the sport of wrestling.
La Blanc, resident of Wailua, attended a banquet on April 15 in Laguna Hills, Calif., hosted by the California Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
“The banquet was great. It was a sold-out event,” La Blanc said Friday. “I saw a lot of coaches and people I’ve known for 50 years. There were a lot of members of my high school team from my sophomore year. … We’ve always kept in touch over the years, and it’s always neat when we get together. So, that was fun.”
He was an honoree at the banquet, receiving a Lifetime Service to Wrestling Award from the California Chapter. La Blanc was one of nine Lifetime Service honorees this year.
“I found out early in the year, maybe late December of last year,” La Blanc said. “They let me know that I was nominated and that there’s a whole process of getting information and stuff. … Eventually, it was posted online maybe a couple of months ago. By then, they sent it out to the guest list. But I didn’t say anything until it went up on their website.”
He said of receiving the award: “It was humbling. I really didn’t know how to react. In some ways, I’m still taken aback. I know a lot of the other people that have been inducted, and they’re people I’ve always really admired. It’s just really humbling that there’s people that thought of me the same way as I’ve thought of the other people that have gone in.”
La Blanc has been a wrestling coach for over 30 years. He was a high school coach for 18 years at various high schools in California. He was also a coach at Rio Hondo Community College in Whittier, Calif., for 17 years — 11 as the head coach.
After retiring to Kauai, the Southern California native has been an assistant wrestling coach at Kauai High School since 2013, soon after wrestling just became a Kauai Interscholastic Federation-sanctioned sport.
“It was different, but it was good,” La Blanc said of coaching on Kauai. “It was nice to see the kids trying something new and learning. I had to dial back a little bit of what I showed, but still, wrestling is wrestling. You show the basic work from beginning wrestlers to Olympic champions.”
He added: “The parents and the kids that love the sport, I felt it here. On the island, it’s a little bit different. More of that family feeling, you get that here. Plus, it’s just small. I haven’t coached girls a lot. I’ve coached some girls fighters, some professional MMA fighters, but not a lot of girls (in high school). And, our girls did great. They’re good students and good people. But, yeah, I just like the love of the sport that I get from the parents and the kids out here.”
Competitively, La Blanc started as a freshman in 1967 at Fountain Valley High School in California. He wrestled collegiately at Orange Coast Community College in Orange County, Calif., and at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, Calif.
La Blanc said he was an All-American during his time at Vangard and placed fourth at the 1975 NAIA Nationals. He last competed at Veterans Nationals in Las Vegas in 2004.
Among his other accomplishments is a silver medal at the 1983 Pan American Games and a bronze medal at the 1994 Veterans World Championships.
“I really do this because I like the sport of wrestling. I like what it teaches kids, about discipline and dedication and all the things they get out of that,” La Blanc said. “That’s what probably gets to me the most. Every year, I get kids that come back and say, ‘Hey coach, you really helped me out. Wrestling really turned me around.’ I don’t know if you can put a price on that.
“They call it a Lifetime Service Award, but all these years are just a thank you — to give back to the sport of wrestling what it gave me. I’ll probably do it until people move me aside and say, ‘Hey, old man. Get out of the way.’”
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Nick Celario, sports writer, can be reached at 245-0437 or ncelario@thegardenisland.com.
