Everett Community College honors its sports legends

Published 10:36 pm Thursday, June 11, 2009

EVERETT — The keynote speaker at Thursday night’s Everett Community College Hall of Fame dinner has one of the most impressive coaching resumes this area has ever seen.

But Mike Price wanted to make one thing clear: he doesn’t even consider himself to be the best coach in his own family.

Longtime EvCC football coach Walt Price, his son said Thursday, is “the greatest coach ever.”

The school left that debate to be made outside of its inaugural Hall of Fame class, as both Prices were honored on Thursday night. While Mike Price came all the way from El Paso, Texas, to speak at the event, his late father was remembered only through countless stories.

“I’m coming in on his shirttails, no question,” Mike Price said a few minutes after the conclusion of an inauguration of six former athletes, six former coaches and two teams from EvCC’s past. “Athletically, I know I certainly don’t belong (in the Hall of Fame). So I’m on his shirttails, but I’m still real, real proud.”

The legend of Walt Price was a theme throughout the evening. While son Mike went on to have success at Washington State University and then at the University of Texas El Paso, it was the father who seemed to leave the greatest legacy at EvCC.

Hall of Fame enshrinee Ed Pepple, a legendary high school basketball coach at Mercer Island, said during his speech that he owes “my entire experience and entire career to Walt Price.” Fellow enshrinee Bill Tsoukalas inadvertently called Mike Price by his father’s name at one point. Jock McLaughlin, the son of Hall of Famer Bill McLaughlin, told a story about meeting Walt Price and thinking that he was “too nice to be a football coach.”

At this event, the Price family was to EvCC what the Kennedys are to politics.

But they weren’t the only honorees at an inauguration dinner that was held at the Events Center.

Of the six former athletes enshrined — Mike Price, Tsoukalas, Pepple, current Minnesota Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson, former NFL running back Terry Metcalf and former high school baseball coach and administrator Bob Smithson — all but Anderson attended the event. Two of the six coaches honored were also in attendance, as Paul Blowers and Ken Tucker spoke while the relatives of deceased honorees Walt Price, McLaughlin, Dolly Holland and Harry Simmermacher shared memories.

The only standing ovation of the night came when 11 members of the school’s 1947 football team took the stage. Led mainly by war veterans who had recently returned from World War II, the Trojans football team went undefeated and upset Santa Rosa Junior College in the Evergreen Bowl to cap off a 10-0 season.

The only other team enshrined in the inaugural class was the 1966 baseball team that, led by the pitching of Tsoukalas, won a state title.

About 300 people attended the event, which was held in the Comcast Arena Conference Center. The three-hour event involved plenty of stories and memories of the glory years.

Thanks in large part to the Price family, most of the memories came from the gridiron. While Mike Price said Thursday that he doesn’t expect the school ever to bring back football — the sport was dropped by the college after the 1975 season — he was glad to have his favorite sport back in the EvCC limelight for one evening.

And he was proud to be a part of the Price family.

“It’s really an honor for me and my family,” Mike Price said while clutching his Hall of Fame plaque after the event. “It’s one of the best things that’s really ever happened for me.”