Tim Vanni’s wrestling career is as vast as it is impressive.

As a student at Monache High School in Porterville, California Vanni was a three-time East Yosemite League champion who never lost a league match. He was also a two-time CIF Valley Masters champion and he was on the Valley championship team in 1978. He placed second and sixth in the California State Championships in 1979 and 1978, respectively, with a 70-3 record during his last two seasons.

Vanni gave up no takedowns during his junior and senior seasons. He missed his high school graduation ceremonies in order compete and win two National Championships in Freestyle and Greco-Roman during competition in Chicago and a third National title in Germany.

At California State University, Bakersfield, he was a four-year letterman while wrestling for Joe Seay, a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. During Vanni’s college days, Cal State Bakersfield earned the distinction of being the best lightweight room in the country.

Vanni placed in the top four in every USA National Championship from 1981 to 1996, winning five individual USA National Championships and not losing a single match in the USA from May of 1986 to June of 1990.

He made his first USA National Team in 1982 at the age of 21. He has competed and traveled to over 30 countries, as a member and ambassador of the United States. Vanni represented the United States in a multitude of national and international competitions and events. He competed seven times at World Championships, five times at the World Cup, five times at Pan American Game Championships, as well as placing fourth in the Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea in 1988 and fifth at the Olympic Games in Barcelona Spain in 1992.

As he continued to train and compete internationally, he became an assistant coach at Cal State Bakersfield, where he served from 1984-1987. Vanni helped lead the Roadrunners to a Division II National championship and a third-place finish before helping the program move to Division I.

At the end of the 1987 college season, Vanni took his first head coaching position in Einsiedeln, Switzerland where he helped the club team finish second nationally while developing the youth program.

Vanni returned to the United States as a volunteer assistant coach for Bobby Douglas’ Arizona State University Sun Devils. There, he helped the team win an NCAA Division I National Championship in 1988 and runner-up honors in 1989. He coached at Arizona State for five seasons before moving home to teach Physical Education and Health at Porterville High School in 1992. He would eventually take a leave of absence to once again compete for an Olympic berth. At the age of 35, Vanni finished third in the 1996 Olympic trials, which was his last competition.

Vanni’s coaching career at PHS has seen his teams win nine East Yosemite League championships and eight top-20 finishes in the CIF State Championships, twice in the top 10 with the highest finish being the seventh-best team in the state in 2013.