Congratulations to the Class of 2021 of the Oregon Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame!!!

These outstanding individuals were inducted on October 23, 2021 for their “Lifetime Service to Wrestling.”

JD Alley has been the Head Coach of Culver High School for 30 years. Culver HS has won the 2A/1A State Championship 12 times. At Culver, Coach Alley has led over 50 individuals to State Championships with as many runner-ups. He has coached 15 high school All-Americans. The Culver Bulldogs under Alley have won nearly 2 decades of Oregon Classic Dual Championships and district championships in a row. Alley is also a part of the Southern Oregon University Hall of Fame as an Individual and with his 1988 team. He was a 2-time All American at SOU. In addition, he was named the NWCA Oregon Coach of the Year 3 times, Oregon Athletic Coach Association -2A Wrestling Coach of the Year 15 times, 4 times as the NFHS Wrestling Oregon Coach of the Year. For the past 14 years JD Alley has been the co-representative for the OACA to the OSAA for wrestling. He is a former Culver school board member and an Elks member for 30 years. J.D. Alley is a farmer and lives with his wife Tammy in Culver, OR. https://youtu.be/Oo13BfxLMBk

Dr. Bill Bettis has made wrestling visible and important for over 25 years. The Bettis Poll, created in the early 90’s was the official ranking system for high school wrestling for over 20 years. He was also on the Board of Directors for the Oregon Chapter to the NWHOF for 23 years. His boards of photos of past Oregonians who were Olympians, World placers, National Champions and more have been displayed for thousands to enjoy over the years and has preserved our Oregon history of the greatest sport. The Bettis Poll and the History boards that Dr. Bettis created helped keep wrestling relevant and important before social media existed. One of the biggest joys was opening up the mail as a head coach and receiving ten 5 x 7 photos of your wrestlers from the previous weekend where Bill was taking photos matside and always shared those photos to help you build your program. Dr Bettis is a retired dentist who has lived most of his life in Roseburg, OR. https://youtu.be/iwJpMlE_3vg

John Breuer grew up in Coos County and graduated from Myrtle Point HS. He had a great deal of success wrestling in high school, at Clark College and Southern Oregon College, where he has also been inducted into the Hall of Fame. After college John was involved as a volunteer in several local wrestling programs. He assisted at North Bend high school from 1973-1988. That position evolved into his becoming the head coach at Coquille HS from 1988-2010 where he won 11 league championships and 10 top seven state finishes. In his coaching tenure he produced a win-loss record of 86-8 in league and with 78 individual league champions, 61 state place winners, 13 OSAA state champions and 1 national champion, he was named coach of the year 6 times. Breuer also coached high school football for 6 years. John Breuer is a physical therapist, runs 5 clinics and has volunteered as the medical professional in many, many wrestling events including events at the Olympic Training Center, the Goodwill Games in Seattle, The Vegas Invitational, the Concord Cup and more. Breuer is also instrumental in making the OR-CA-WA Duals a success for the past decade. Breuer lives with his wife Mary Kay in Coquille, OR. https://youtu.be/iINIRQZY8ds

Len Kauffman was a successful wrestler at Lebanon HS where he has been inducted into their Hall of Fame and then a 2-time All-American at Oregon State University where he has also been inducted into the Hall of Fame. After college he continued wrestling and was a two-time National AAU freestyle champion and placed 4th in the 1966 World Championships. In the Army he retired as a Colonel with 23 Air Medals, Meritorious Service and a Bronze Star After serving as a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam war, he returned to OSU and was an assistant under Hall of Fame head coach Dale Thomas. He went on to become the head coach at Portland State University. After coaching, he became a pilot for American Airlines. During this time he still made wrestling a big part of his life. Since 2004 he has been on the Board of Directors of the Oregon Chapter of the NWHOF and held the offices of both president and vice president. He also was one of the founders of an organization that for 35 years has supported the Oregon State University wrestling program by bringing together OSU wrestling alumni for events that help keep the alumni connected and supporting the current program. He is currently retired and lives with his wife Sheri in Tualatin, OR. https://youtu.be/iuVHMJiPNDw

Stephanie Matthews has been a tireless volunteer for the sport of wrestling in Oregon for two decades. Whether she is taking pictures at tournaments, helping with the NWHOF banquet, training table help or anything that is needed, Stephanie is always there. She serves the wrestling community in Gresham by being the Centennial Mat Club President and the Stat Crew Advisor. Her stat crew team runs scoring tables for not only the OSAA State Championships and the Oregon Classic, but also every tournament that Centennial attends. She is also a certified OSAA weight assessor serving many schools in the Portland area for over a decade. In addition she serves on the OSAA Tournament Committee, The Oregon Classic Tournament Committee and has won the prestigious Oregon Classic Outstanding Citizen Award. She manages the hospitality room, scoring tables and the Parade of Champions at the state tournament, works with the Restore College Wrestling in Oregon organization and has recently been voted onto the Board of Directors for the Oregon Chapter of the NWHOF. She is currently the Athletic Administrative Assistant at David Douglas High School and lives with her husband Roger in Portland, OR. https://youtu.be/Hi5OYDdOux4

Jim Pond was a three-time state place winner in high school and followed that by being the only All-American wrestler ever at Georgia Tech University in 1966. His post-college wrestling includes multiple Oregon senior Greco Roman Championships and a 2nd place finish in the 1971 National Greco Roman championships. He began his coaching career after graduating from Georgia Tech in the top 20% of his class in Industrial Engineering. He came to OSU as a graduate assistant coach and then onto Simon Fraser University and a Head Coach position. After a successful 3 year run at Simon Fraser, in which he coached 17 individuals to Freestyle or Greco Roman national titles, he returned to be an assistant coach at Oregon State University, In 1981, Jim left the coaching field to pursue a successful career in engineering and at one time was named Mentor Graphics’ DIrector of Worldwide Operations. He may have left coaching, but he never left wrestling. Jim was instrumental in getting the Oregon Chapter of the NWHOF started and served 25 years on the board, 20 as the president. He also served on the Oregon State University Blue Ribbon Committee for the OSU Wrestling Endowment Fund. One of his most influential contributions was founding the OSU Alumni organization known as the IOC. It has met for 34 years serving the Oregon State wrestling alumni and supporters to focus on supporting and sustaining the Beaver wrestling tradition. Jim is retired and lives with his wife Suzanne in Portland, OR. https://youtu.be/hiE8lmQehW8

Art Reynolds began wrestling at Hillsboro High School in 1955 and then also wrestled at Pacific University in Forest Grove, OR. Those years led to 22 years as a coach and over 30 years as an official through USA Wrestling and the Oregon Wrestling Association. From 1976-1982 Coach Reynolds led the Forest Grove Kids Club, then from 1984-1991 he coached at Glencoe HS and with the Glencoe Kids Club. In 1992 he began coaching the Hillsboro Kids Club and from 1996-1998 he coached the Century Kids Cub. All throughout those years Coach Reynolds was officiating wrestling around the nation representing Oregon in the USA Wrestling events as a Category M1 wrestling official in Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, British Columbia, Montana, California and the National Championship tournaments. In 1988 he coached on the Cultural Exchange team and in 2008 he was awarded the OWA Rollin Schimmel Award. In 1994 the Northwest Junior Collegiate Wrestling Association named their annual championship after Art Reynolds. In 2016, after 15 years on the board and over a decade as the tournament director, he retired as the president and treasurer of the NWJCWA. Art is a retired commercial fisherman and lives with his wife Gerry in North Plains, OR. https://youtu.be/1Z4tP6-ctdM

Scott Shannon has coached high school teams, national teams, cultural exchange teams and led divisions with the Oregon Wrestling Association for over 33 years. Along with those duties he played an integral part in the development of Women’s wrestling in our state. He was the OWA Women’s Director for 4 years from 2015-2019. Before that he was the OWA Cadet Director from 1999-2008. He planned, organized and led a trip to the Fargo National Championships every year between 1999-2019 and went as a coach every year from 1989-2019. Scott wrestled in college in Montana and then began coaching at Springfield HS in 1985. He coached at Dallas HS from 1987-1989, then Marshfield HS from 1992-1994 and Tillamook HS from 1994-1998. He found his home at Elmira and coached wrestling there from 2001-2018. At Elmira, he had many individual state championships for both males and females, 4 league titles and a 2014 Women’s Wrestling Team State Championship. He has been a coach for the Oregon Cultural Exchange team 6 times leading those teams to Turkey, Brazil, South Africa and Japan three times. Scott was on the Oregon Classic tournament committee for many years and currently serves on the OSAA Wrestling Tournament Committee. He is a teacher at Elmira High School and lives with his wife Vicki in Redmond, OR. https://youtu.be/7d2N-qlb1Ac