Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to footer
Bellevue Big Bend Blue Mountain Centralia Chemeketa Clackamas Clark Columbia Basin Douglas Edmonds Everett CC Gray Harbor Green River Highline Lane Linn Benton LCC MHCC North Idaho Olympic Peninsula Pierce Portland Rogue Shoreline Skagit Valley South Puget Sound SW Oregon Spokane Tacoma Treasure Valley Umpqua Walla Walla Wenatchee Valley Whatcom Yakima Valley
The Official Website of the Northwest Athletic Conference
NWAC, Yakima Valley Mourn Loss of Hall of Famer Bill Faller, 98 - Celebration of Life Sep. 30
Posted: Sep 22, 2023

NWAC, Yakima Valley Mourn Loss of Hall of Famer Bill Faller, 98 - Celebration of Life Sep. 30

Story courtesy Luke Thompson, Yakima Herald-Republic

The NWAC and Yakima Valley College mourn the loss of Hall of Fame baseball coach Bill Faller, who passed away on Friday at the age of 98.

Faller retired from Yakima Valley College in 1987 after 26 years of coaching, during which he became the NWAC's winningest coach with 664 wins 18 league titles and 11 conference championships. Faller also served at YVC as the coach of the school's only conference champions in football, in 1964, an assistant basketball coach, a P.E. instructor, athletic director and a two-term faculty union president.

Prior to YVC, Faller taught and coached at Prosser and Wapato. He started Wapato's Little League in the late 1950s.

Faller had a remarkable life, and accomplished much in his first 20 years. He was a standout two-sport athlete at Mount Vernon High School, from which he graduated with honors in 1942. He had starred for the Bellingham Bells semipro baseball team, enlisted in the Army Air Corps during World War II, earned his wings in 1944, was shot down over Frankfurt, Germany in 1945 and was held captive with a serious back injury in that country until he and others were liberated by American troops.

Faller began a two-week trip home on a ship from Northern France on April 14, 1945, his 20th birthday. When discharged in November of 1945 as a first lieutenant, Faller received two purple hearts and an air medal.

Youth baseball in the valley also felt the impact of Faller, a charter member of the Parker Youth and Sports Foundation. It established the Faller/Brayton endowment in 2007 to further the foundation's mission and objectives while honoring the contributions of Faller and longtime YVC and Washington State baseball coach Chuck Brayton.

YVC inducted Faller into its Hall of Fame in 1984 and Washington State enshrined him in 2012. The NWAC named its championship trophy the Bill Faller Trophy and inducted him into the NWAC Hall of Fame in 1991.

A Celebration of Life for Bill Faller will be held on Sep. 30, 2023 at 1 p.m. at Cascade Garden in Yakima.