After three years as the athletic director at Andrews Osborne Academy, James Valle is moving on.
Valle confirmed to The News-Herald this week that he has taken the athletic director’s job at Crystal Spring Uplands School in Hillsboro, California, and will be leaving Andrews at the end of the school year. The school is near San Francisco.
Scott McNevan is slated to take over the Andrews AD post as of July 1. Valle’s position as boys basketball coach with the Phoenix will be filled by Bob Cecil.
“They performed a national search, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to do great things with their athletic programs,” Valle said of the Crystal Spring Uplands interview process. “It is one of the top academic schools in the country. It has a very robust athletic program in terms of resources. They have 250 to 500 students in the school, and athletics is a big part of the school.”
Valle and his wife have two children, with a third on the way.
“We’re hitting all the regions,” he said with a laugh. “We came from Miami, came to Cleveland and are going to San Francisco.”
As of now, Valle is not coaching at Crystal Spring Uplands. He said basketball is one of the school’s “developing sports,” but it hasn’t been determined yet if he will be coaching there as he did at Andrews.
During his three-year tenure at Andrews, the athletic programs flourished, something he is proud of. The boys basketball, girls basketball, volleyball, soccer and softball teams all won their first conference championships, he said. This past winter, his boys basketball team went 15-7 with a Lake Effect Conference title, while coach Brittany Zele’s girls team went 18-4 with a league crown.
In three years at the boys basketball helm, Valle’s teams went 62-22 with three LEC championships.
“A lot that hadn’t been competitive have been,” he said of the athletic programs. “That was a goal of mine when I got here.”
Another goal is on pace, he said, to be reached in June before he departs. Andrews has applied to rejoin the OHSAA. When that takes effect, the Phoenix will again be participating in the OHSAA postseason tournaments.
“I know everything we’ve done this year was to get to that goal, and we’re on track,” Valle said. “Everything the OHSAA has asked us to do, we’ve done. We submitted our application in May and we’ll hear from them in June. I don’t see anything that would keep us from getting in.”
Don’t miss
>> Andrews Osborne girls basketball: Phoenix rising attributed to overcoming obstacles
>> Read more about the Andrews Osborne Phoenix