Mukilteo sports chiropractor receives national recognition

Published 1:30 am Friday, May 8, 2026

EVERETT — Marc Van Driessche learned he got accepted into chiropractic school when he was 200 miles off of Alaska’s Gulf Coast.

More than 30 years later, he became the second sports chiropractor in Washington to receive the Sports Chiropractor of the Year award from the American Chiropractic Board of Sports Physicians.

Van Driessche has been working in Mukilteo for more than 30 years at his own practice, Beverly Park Chiropractic.

He was inspired to go into the field when he was a premed student at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. He had taken a year off of school to fish commercially while one of his close friends went to chiropractic school.

“About a year into his schooling, he called me up and said, ‘You should come here.’ And so I applied,” Van Driessche said.

He went on to receive a doctor of chiropractic from Palmer College of Chiropractic in Iowa. Over the years, Van Dreissche has worked with various athletes around the state, including for mixed martial arts; jiu jitsu; and various high school, college and semi-professional athletics.

After graduate school, he worked with semi-professional football teams in Washington, including the former Snohomish County Vikings. Lyle Ronning, a former Snohomish County Vikings player, said he wasn’t surprised when he heard Van Driessche received the award.

“He’s been working hard to gain inroads into the sports community for years, and he’s one of the few diplomats out there who’s done the higher education track,” said Ronning, who is now a chiropractor in Seattle. “He deserves the honor.”

In 2019, Van Dreissche was working with the Seattle Mist when it won its third national title in the Lingerie Football League. He’s also worked with BMX athletes in the Nitro Circus Tour.

“Those athletes, they fly around at 80 feet with a 400-pound motorcycle,” Van Driessche said. “So if that fell on top of them, they’re obviously not going to feel very good. Being able to fix those people up and have them do their job, I think is an extremely satisfying career.”

One of his favorite chiropractic experiences was in February, when he went to Switzerland to work with athletes in the Snow League, a winter sports competition founded by famous snowboarder Shaun White.

“Taking care of the top 20 or 30 freestyle snowboarders on the half pipe and the top 20 or 30 freestyle skiers on the half pipe at 10,000 feet in the Alps was pretty cool,” Van Dreissche said.

Van Dreissche has always been interested in sports, he said, used to be an athlete himself. In undergrad, he was a power lifter and wrestler. He previously served as the chair of the Washington State Chiropractic Association Sports Council.

Van Dreissche accepted the Sports Chiropractor of the Year award on April 24 in Dallas.

“I’m not a very emotional person, I’m very flat-lined because I deal with really stressful situations,” he said. “But I literally had a tear in my eye going up to the podium. I was shocked.”

Patient care is what has kept Van Driessche going for more than 30 years, he said.

“I don’t like to see people in pain if it’s not necessary, and therefore, if they come in here, they’re treated like family,” he said. “It’s 31 years of the same stuff, so I think that’s important. You try to resolve a person’s physical problems that are stopping them from the activities that they want to do.”

Jenna Peterson: 425-339-3486; jenna.peterson@heraldnet.com; X: @jennarpetersonn.