Inducted 2024

For 27 years, Bill Kalivas led the Bakersfield College wrestling program to its greatest success.
During his tenure at BC, he coached 20 academic All-Americans, 15 state champions, 38 state finalists, 75 junior college All-Americans, 122 state placers, 69 Western State Conference championships and five Western State Conference team championships while being named Western State coach of the year five times. During that tenure, the Renegades record was 208-65-2 under his leadership.

In 2003-04, he was named the National Wrestling Coaches Association California Coach of the Year and in 2005, was named the National Wrestling Coaches Association’s Bob Bubb Coaching Excellence Award, given for his 25-year service award to the sport of wrestling.

Outside of local wrestling, Bill also spent years at the national level with the USA Veterans Inaugural Nation Freestyle Wrestling Championships and served as an executive board member for the California Community College Coaches Association and was a 2012 inductee into the California Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame.
He began his coaching career in 1976 at Cal State Bakersfield as an assistant the year the Runners won the first NCAA College Division National Championship in program history.

After CSUB, he coached at UNLV and internationally before returning to Bakersfield as a grad assistant at CSUB from 1981-84 before taking on the assistant role for two years at BC before taking over the program.
Later in his coaching career, he began coaching the USA Veterans National Freestyle and Greco-Roman Wrestling Champions, coaching seven different national champions.

As a wrestler, Bill graduated from Beverly Hills High School in 1970, where he won his league title. At Pierce College, he was a conference champion and California JC All-American before transferring to Cal State Bakersfield, where he was the team captain and academic All-American in 1973-74 for the Runners.