Valencia to serve as AD for Columbia, Henkle

Valencia’s tie to the Gorge is his girlfriend, Madelynn Vallejo, a kindergarten teacher at Parkdale Elementary and the recent hire to coach softball at Hood River Valley. Vallejo graduated from HRV in 2016 and played softball at George Fox University in Newberg, where she and Valencia met.

“I grew up in athletics my whole life; it’s kind of been my passion since I was really little — team sports,” Valencia said. “When your career ends, it’s kind of a tough transition to the real world, the working world. I’m just grateful I can kind of live vicariously through these athletes.”

Valencia graduate from high school in Phoenix, Arizona, and played baseball for four years at George Fox. He graduated in 2018 with an economics degree and went to work at Lincoln High School in Portland as its assistant athletic director. He also coached the junior varsity baseball team while he was at Lincoln.

There was a brief, eye-opening stint — post college — that convinced Valencia he needed to pursue a career in athletics. “I had a desk job at Edward Jones running their books and I hated that,” he said. “I hated being in the office. Being able to go to Lincoln and be able to coach, and being in the athletic department, like I said, that was right up my alley.”

Valencia has been active in sports since he can remember, though he said the nuances of being an athletic director were unknown to him before he worked at Lincoln.

“I think when I graduated high school, I didn’t even know what an athletic director did,” he said. “(At Lincoln with) game management, I was there every single game the last three years. Watching these kids compete, more importantly, watching them have failure and seeing how they develop that, work through that on their own and with coaches and with administrators. Failing in those sports but also being able to see how those life lessons (play out), how you can work through those life lessons and life goals and how you handle adversity.

“That’s what I enjoy mostly about this role is watching them fail, watching them succeed and watching them grow up to be community members and coming back to be coaches.”

Valencia said a unique aspect of the White Salmon community is the student retention rate, which he said bodes well for the athletic programs.

“I think it’s about 95 percent of our elementary students come (here) and actually graduate from our high school,” he explained. “And that’s a very, very unique thing. Not too many people are leaving this community .… I think that’s a great thing.

“That’s what it’s all about – building that community, building that foundation.”