Built Fast, Built to Win: Eric Martinez Has Valley View on Top of the CIF Mountain

MORENO VALLEY, Calif. — Some coaches inherit a program and ask for patience. Eric Martinez arrived at Valley View and gave the Eagles a reason to believe almost immediately.

Two seasons into his tenure, Valley View is not talking about a rebuild anymore. The Eagles are the defending CIF Southern Section Division 11 champions.

That sentence carries weight because of how quickly it happened.

The Los Angeles Times reported Martinez as Valley View’s new head football coach in January 2024 after he had previously served as the head coach at Diamond Ranch. Valley View had finished 4-6 in 2023. In Martinez’s first season, the Eagles improved to 7-5 and returned to the CIF Southern Section playoffs. One year later, they went 9-6, won four Southern Section playoff games and finished the run by defeating Baldwin Park 20-18 for the Division 11 championship.

HE DIDN’T JUST CHANGE THE RECORD — HE CHANGED THE EXPECTATION

Program building is not only measured by wins. It is measured by what players, parents and opponents begin to expect when they see the uniform.

That is where Martinez’s impact at Valley View has been most obvious.

The Eagles entered 2024 coming off a losing season. By the end of Martinez’s first year, they had seven wins and playoff experience. By the end of his second, they were lifting a CIF championship trophy.

That kind of acceleration does not happen by accident. It requires staff alignment, player development, belief inside the locker room and enough discipline to survive the moments when a season can turn in either direction.

A CHAMPIONSHIP RUN BUILT ON TOUGHNESS

Valley View’s 2025 title run was not a straight-line march through an easy bracket. The Eagles had to earn it every week.

They opened the Division 11 playoffs with a 24-3 win over Dominguez, then edged Gahr 28-21 in the quarterfinals and South Pasadena 28-21 in the semifinals. In the championship game, Valley View defeated Baldwin Park 20-18 to finish the Southern Section run as champions.

The season continued into the CIF State Division 6-AA bowl round, where Valley View’s run finally ended against Valley Center. The final loss did not erase what had already been established: Martinez had taken the Eagles from a four-win team before his arrival to a section champion in two seasons.

CIF RECOGNIZED WHAT THE CITY COULD SEE

The championship brought individual honors, but those honors also reflected the program Martinez and his staff had built.

CIF Southern Section named Eric Martinez the Division 11 Championship Coach. Quarterback Jesse Vega was selected as the division’s Offensive Player of the Year, while linebacker Bronson Pulu earned Defensive Player of the Year honors. Valley View also placed multiple players on the All-CIF team, a sign that the championship was not carried by one star alone.

A coach can call for toughness, accountability and development. The strongest proof is when the roster begins producing players recognized at the highest level of the division.

THIS WAS NOT MARTINEZ’S FIRST BUILD

Martinez did not arrive at Valley View learning how to run a program for the first time. Before taking the job in Moreno Valley, he had already been a head coach at Diamond Ranch, where public records show multiple winning seasons and league success during his tenure.

That experience matters. Valley View did not need a coach experimenting with what leadership might look like. The Eagles hired someone who had already been responsible for building a staff, managing a program and developing football teams over multiple seasons.

The result was a transition that looked less like a reset and more like an installation of standards.

WHY THIS MATTERS FOR MORENO VALLEY

A CIF championship at Valley View is bigger than one Saturday night or one trophy case.

It gives Moreno Valley another program that can tell young athletes, with evidence, that championship football can be built right here in the city.

That matters in a region where talented players are constantly told they need to transfer, travel farther or attach themselves to a bigger-name program to be seen. Valley View’s championship says something different: development, winning and recognition can happen at home.

And Martinez has helped make that argument credible in only two seasons.

THE NEXT CHALLENGE: DEFENDING THE STANDARD

Winning a championship changes the questions around a program.

The Eagles are no longer trying to prove they can make a playoff run. Now they have to deal with being the team that opponents circle on the schedule.

MaxPreps currently lists Martinez as Valley View’s head coach for the 2026 season alongside assistants Mike Esquivel, Daniel Wire, Brandon Colón, Anthony Settle and Robert Miller. The defending champions are scheduled to open Aug. 21 against Claremont, followed by road games against Sports Leadership & Management and Vista del Lago.

The roster will change. The stars from the championship run will not all be there forever. That is the real test of a program builder: whether the standard survives the names that first established it.

Eric Martinez has already shown he can arrive, organize, develop and win quickly.

Now the defending Division 11 champions enter 2026 with a different mission — proving what was built quickly can also be built to last.

Valley Life 247 Sports will follow Coach Eric Martinez and Valley View throughout the 2026 season as part of our independent high school football coverage of Moreno Valley and the Inland Empire.

Reporting sources reviewed for this feature: CIF Southern Section, MaxPreps, Los Angeles Times, Southern California Football Coaches Association and current public team listings through August 12, 2026.