Legendary Coach Chet Hovde Passes Away
Everett, WA - Everett Community College Athletics is saddened by the passing of retired coach, Chet Hovde. He died on March 9th at the age of 77 after a year long bout with kidney disease. Chet was an icon in the Everett community and dedicated nearly four decades of his life to coaching basketball at EvCC.
Coach Hovde first came to EvCC in 1978 as the men's assistant coach in which the team went 21-8, won a region championship, and placed 5th in the NWAACC tournament. The next season, he joined the women's basketball program as an assistant, just in its 2nd year of NWAACC sanctioned existence, and took over midway through the 1979-1980 season as the head coach for Ken Cobb who stepped down in January.
An opportunity then became available at his alma mater, the University of Puget Sound in the fall of 1980 to coach the women's team there. The Loggers had two winning seasons with Hovde before he decided to return to the Everett CC women's program and assisted Doug Nixon for the 1982-1983 season where the team went 23-7 and finished 3rd in the NWAACC tournament.
Chet would get another head coaching opportunity at rival Edmonds Community College in the 1985-1986 season. He took over a program that could not consistently fill a full roster and took the Tritons to two straight 20 win seasons for the first time in program history, finishing the '86-'87 season 4th in the NWAACC and is to date the highest finish in Edmonds CC women's basketball history.
His success would bring him back to his hometown of Everett for the '88-'89 season, where he would take over an EvCC women's basketball program that had not won a game over the past two seasons. Coach Hovde led the team to nine wins in his first full season as the head women's coach at EvCC and then went on to rack up 442 career wins over the next 32 years taking the Trojans to 14 NWAC tournaments and winning three North Region Championships.
Coach Hovde's coaching career spanned 40 years of which he coached hundreds of young women, most of which have gone on to four year universities to continue their basketball careers and education while some even became coaches themselves. He retired from coaching at EvCC after the completion of the 2021 season that was shortened due to COVID-19. The team won the north region title that season.
Retirement Articles: EvCC / Everett Herald
Prior to coaching Chet was a 1st team all state basketball player at Everett High before he was recruited on a full ride scholarship to the University of Washington in 1965. He played for the Huskies for two seasons before transferring to the University of Puget Sound to finish out his junior and senior year, earning his bachelor's degree in education.
Chet's calm demeanor and positivity gave his players confidence, and helped them grow. He had a lot of successes on the basketball court as a coach, but even more important than that was his dedication to all the young women he coached and the impact that he has had on their lives. Our hearts go out to his wife Joan, his three son's, and grandchildren.
Everett Herald Article on Chet's Passing
