When Kyle Temple arrived at Cottage Grove High School, it was the first time in over three decades the school had seen a new wrestling coach. At the time, Bill Thompson told The Sentinel, “Kyle’s a young go-getter who has basically the same philosophy and work ethic that I have tried to instill in our kids, our community and school. "I think he fits the bill to do a great job for our community and

kids.”
Now, after nearly three years, the high school will say goodbye

to Mr. Temple. "The Umpqua Community College Department of Athletics is excited to announce the appointment of Kyle Temple as their new Head Coach for Men’s Wrestling," a press release from Umpqua announced on Monday, April 3.

Temple grew up in Sweet Home, Oregon before eventually land- ing a position at Stayton and Sprague high schools and becoming coach of three different Top 10 programs. According to the release, while working at both Stayton and Cottage Grove, Temple began to get involved with the Oregon Wrestling Association. He held positions on the Cadet, Junior, and Women’s council, while also taking the reigns as the lead coach and organizer for Western Junior Dual trip to Pocatello, ID. This trip grew under Temple from 15 participants to its’ current yearly average of 52 kids from all across Oregon. In 2016, Coach Temple was voted as the Western Region Junior Person of the year by representatives from the 11 western states. Also in 2016, Temple took over as the Oregon Wrestling As-

sociation Junior Level Director where he has worked to increase opportunities and participation for high school aged wrestlers across the state at regional and national level tournaments. During this past seasons’ Greco-Roman National Championships, Oregon finished 3rd in the nation and produced two national champions.

Temple attended Southern Oregon University where he competed for the Raiders from 2003 through 2008. He was a national qualifier his senior season and also competed in the FILA Jr. National free- style and Greco-Roman tournaments where he was a match out of earning All-American honors. Temple earned a Bachelor's in Histo- ry from Southern Oregon University in 2008, and holds his Masters in Teaching from Western Oregon University.

Umpqua’s Director of Athletics Craig Jackson, had this to say about the naming of Coach Temple as the Men’s Wresting Coach, “We are very excited to have someone with Kyle’s experience to head up RiverHawk wrestling. We feel that his enthusiasm and con- tacts throughout Oregon and the western United States make him an outstanding fit for what we are trying to accomplish with our new program. He is very well thought of by his peers and will work to show athletes that UCC is an outstanding destination for collegiate wrestlers.”

Athletic director for the high school Gary Roberts said of the change, "We're going to at some point shortly post for the job. We don't have any internal right now that has shown interest yet and we'll go from there."

Speaking on the loss of Temple to the program, Roberts said, "We're going to miss Kyle and we're wishing him well. It's an op- portunity that's tough to pass up, to coach at the college level that he's dreamed of and didn't think he'd get the opportunity to do be- cause those positions are just hard to come across. Not to mention, he'll have the chance to start a program. It's really good for him and we wish him well and hopefully we find someone who can come in and pick up where he left off and continue to get this thing going in the right direction."