The National Wrestling Hall of Fame announced on Thursday that the Class of 2018 inductees will feature Distinguished Member Lee Allen who will be inducted posthumously as he passed away in 2012 at the age of 77.
Allen and his wife, Joan Fulp, were instrumental in the development and growth of women’s wrestling in California and the United States. He led the men’s wrestling program at Skyline College in California for 32 years while incorporating a women’s program.
His San Francisco Peninsula Grapplers women’s team won the senior national championships in 1997 and 1999. Allen was head coach of the women’s wrestling team at Menlo College in California from 2001 to 2010 where he coached both of his daughters, Sara Fulp-Allen Bahoura and Katherine Fulp-Allen Shai.
Sara was the first three-time women’s college national champion, and an injury prevented her from competing as a senior to try and become the first four-time champion.
Katherine was a World University champion and five-time national team member.
Allen was one of only four wrestlers to represent the United States at the Olympics in both freestyle and Greco-Roman, competing in freestyle in 1956 and finishing eighth in Greco-Roman in 1960. He was a member of the first United States team to compete in the World Championships, placing sixth in freestyle in 1961.
Allen was a four-time undefeated Oregon state champion for Sandy High School in Sandy, Oregon, and competed in college at Portland State from 1952-54. Allen was the head coach of the 1980 Olympic Greco-Roman team, which did not compete in the Olympics in Moscow, Soviet Union, because of the U.S. government boycott of the Games. He was an assistant coach for the United States Greco-Roman team at the Olympics in 1972 and 1976. He was head coach of four United States Greco-Roman teams at the World Championships in 1973, 1977, 1978 and 1979. The 1979 team finished fourth with three individual medalists, which was one of the best Greco-Roman performances of the time period.
Lee has received the Lifetime Service to Wrestling award from the Oregon Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2011 and from the California Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2013. He is a member of the AAU Hall of Fame, the San Mateo County Sport Hall of Fame, Skyline College Hall of Fame, California Wrestling Hall of Fame and the Portland State University Hall of Fame.
