Matt Koenigs reflects on path that led to EvCC Hall of Fame

Published 8:07 am Friday, June 5, 2026

EVERETT — When Matt Koenigs took over as the cross country coach at Everett Community College back in July of 2006, the bulk of his coaching experience involved teaching youth soccer players how to kick a ball.

The former Marysville Pilchuck and Western Washington runner had plenty of experience in the sport, particularly as a leader to his teammates, but not as an actual coach. So when then-EvCC athletic director Larry Walker offered him the position, it looked like a gamble on the surface.

In reality, the Trojans cross country program did not have much to lose anyway. Koenigs inherited just two men on the roster, with only one making it to the start of the season. He had local high school coaches tell him that he would never succeed at EvCC, that they would not trust sending their top runners to the program due to its lackluster history.

“We really kind of started from scratch,” Koenigs told The Herald. “And when I first started reaching out to coaches, I had some of them tell me, ‘It sounds like you’ve got this big vision for Everett Community College, and I just want to help you with some realism: You’re not going to win at Everett.’ …

“I just didn’t want to accept that. I felt like a good cross country program, a good distance-running program, could build itself. And it just took the right kids coming in, the right people supporting it.”

With a motivated Koenigs at the helm, and with the right support, Walker’s gamble paid off. Big time.

Over Koenigs’ nine-year tenure from 2006-2014, EvCC won five Northwest Athletic Conference (NWAC) titles — two for men and three for women — as well as two combined titles in 2011 and 2012, when the 2011 men’s team and 2012 women’s team each recorded the fastest junior college team times in the nation in those years.

Koenigs earned six NWAC Coach of the Year awards, and on Tuesday he joined four other individuals and two teams in the EvCC Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2026 at the Walt Price Student Fitness Center.

“If you’re willing to put in the work, if you’re willing to learn from failure, if you’re willing to keep moving forward if things get difficult, you can accomplish more than you ever imagined,” Koenigs said in his induction speech. “Thank you Everett Community College, the Hall of Fame committee, my family, my athletes and my coaches, and everyone who helped to make this dream possible.”

In addition to Koenigs, track & field star Emily Bland, baseball pitcher Keone Kela, golfer Chuck Kinney, public address announcer Dan Murphy and the 1950 and 1951 men’s golf teams were inducted.

Koenigs’ journey from upstart coach to Hall of Famer began in earnest in that 2006 season, when the EvCC men’s team placed fifth at the NWAC Championships (then-NWAACC). The first step was addressing the existing concerns with the program: where the team would train and who the top athletes would run with.

Given EvCC’s urban campus, finding proper training routes was a bit of a search mission, but Koenigs ultimately zoned in on the required areas. He discovered Langus Park and McCollum Park each had good trails, and Legion Park became a go-to spot for workouts.

“We started to just find places that we could go,” Koenigs said. “And once I found good soft-surface trails and I started to develop some of the runners that were here, I brought in a really good assistant coach.”

That assistant — longtime local coach Shelby Schenk — brought experience to the staff that expedited the rebuilding process. Koenigs believes it would have taken him 10 years alone to accomplish what the Trojans did in just two with Schenk on the staff.

The duo started to sell recruits on the benefits of attending EvCC — saving money, developing for potential opportunities at four-year programs, etc. — while also selling their knowledge and expertise in leading the program.

“That’s why kids chose to come here,” Koenigs said. “It’s because we cared about their success. We were going to pour into them, and we were seeing athletes improve while they were here, and that really helped to bring other kids here.”

The Trojans men and women each placed second in the NWAC Championships in 2007, and while the program’s newfound talent allowed them to reach the podium again in 2008, Koenigs did not feel like the culture was truly ingrained until 2009, when the women’s team surprised the rest of the conference with one of the more dominant championship showings in conference history.

The Trojans had each of the top three runners: individual champion Shawna Schooley, Valerie Massie and Kelsey Loomans. To round out the top five, Kelly Talkington and Amanda Brager took eighth- and ninth-place, respectively.

“It was the 2009 team, and especially the girls that season, that really helped us turn the corner,” Koenigs said. “Whatever we asked them to do, they did it. … From there, once we had shown this path to success — that team had come through and bought into the culture — the sophomores pass it on to the next year’s freshmen, and they became sophomores and they pass it on to the next group of freshmen.

“Those kids brought in their friends from their high schools, and we just started to develop pipelines.”

In addition to recruiting out of top local programs like Lake Stevens, Koenigs & Co. brought in runners from Yakima and Spokane. In short order, the program had the luxury of being selective with its recruits, opting for culture fits more than purely the fastest times.

With the positive and productive culture Koenigs had built, those athletes developed at a rate that kept team success going. During Koenigs’ tenure, 18 of his athletes won individual NWAC titles, 73 became All-Americans and nine would go on to place at the NCAA Division I Championships after departing the program.

But the proudest accomplishment for Koenigs did not come with any hardware. His entire career served as a tribute to his father, David.

The two bonded working together on remodeling projects — fixing a roof, tiling floors, even building a backyard swimming pool — fishing and their annual tradition of attending a University of Washington football game.

It was during one of those games in 2001 that David Koenigs revealed to Matt that he would have loved to coach.

“I think I had shared with him… ‘Well, I think I’m going to go to law school,’” Matt Koenigs said. “‘I’d think about coaching, but it just doesn’t seem like there are a lot of opportunities around here. I don’t know how to make that work as a career.’

“And he was like, ‘Oh, I would have really loved to do that. I really felt like that’s something I could have done really well.’”

In addition to being a prominent wrestler in high school, David Koenigs was once the executive director of the Stillaguamish Tribe, and later served as the executive director for the Seattle branch of St. Vincent de Paul. Giving back to the community was a major part of his life.

That charitable nature and affinity for remodeling houses led him to hiring a couple of “down on their luck” individuals to assist him in his efforts to flip a house in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle in 2005, according to Matt Koenigs.

However, when David Koenigs discovered the men were staying in the house without permission and confronted them, they murdered him and stole his car. The men were eventually caught at a gas station in Oregon, and ultimately given long prison sentences in 2007. David Koenigs was 57 years old.

Matt Koenigs, just 25 at the time, had learned he passed the bar exam just 10 days earlier, but he no longer had the desire to put everything into a career that would take him away from his family. He was not sure what to do.

About six months later, his former teammate at Marysville Pilchuck, Michael Elsner, gave him a call.

One month out from the 2006 cross country, EvCC still did not have a coach in place. Elsner, who knew Walker through local basketball circles, had been discussing potential candidates in the area. He brought up Koenigs’ name to Walker, who took Elsner’s suggestion and offered Koenigs the position.

“I went home, I sat down, I thought about it, and I know that was my dad’s dream,” Koenigs said. “He was kind of my coach growing up. … He would have wanted me to do this. He had already passed away. This would be a good way for me to create a legacy that reflects who he was, and to fulfill his dream. And mine too, a little bit.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

After his dominant run at EvCC, Koenigs had stints at Trinity Lutheran College and Edmonds Community College, but now he runs the Bryant Bandits Track Club, which he originally started for his son, Chase, and his friends but has since grown to an entire youth running club ranging from elementary to high school students.

Koenigs will be bringing 15 athletes to Nike Nationals later this month.

“It’s mostly just social running, and just that community and the consistency,” Koenigs said. “It seems to be working for us.”

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Emily Bland competed in track & field for the Trojans from 2015-2016, winning the NWAC Championship in the 400-meter hurdles in both seasons and adding a 100-meter hurdles title in 2016 as well, breaking the program record in both distances that season.

Bland moved on to Central Washington, where she won the 400-meter hurdles at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) Championships as a junior.

“I’m totally thankful for this award, and for everyone who played a part in my journey,” Bland said in her speech. “The support, guidance and belief that so many people showed me helped me not only become the athlete I was, but the person I am today.”

Keona Kela primarily played as a closer for the 2012 Trojans baseball team, posting a 2.07 ERA across 39 innings and notching 48 strikeouts. Flashing some two-way ability, Kela averaged .292 in 48 at-bats, and helped EvCC finish third in the NWAC Tournament.

The Texas Rangers selected Kela in the 12th round of the 2012 MLB Draft following his season with the Trojans, and he made an improbable rise to the Majors in just three years. Kela posted 28 saves and 279 strikeouts in seven MLB seasons, and appeared for Texas in both the 2015 and 2016 ALDS.

Kela currently plays in Mexico and was not present on Tuesday, but he submitted a video while his former coach at EvCC, fellow Hall of Famer Levi Lacey, accepted on his behalf.

“Keone was one of the best competitors we’ve had in our program,” Lacey said in his speech. “… Keone’s path from community college baseball to the big leagues, and to pitch in front of those stadiums and to represent Everett Community College around the country, has just shown his power for perseverance, discipline and grit.”

Dan Murphy spent eight years as the public address announcer for Trojans volleyball, basketball and softball from 2017-25, and remained an active lifestyle until his death in December 2025. He even completed a 212-mile bike ride from Seattle to Portland in 2021 at the age of 70.

Murphy worked play-by-play commentary into his PA duties at EvCC, and often received appreciation from visiting fans and coaches, who appreciated the energy he brought to the mic.

Chuck Kinney headlined the 1950 Everett Junior College men’s golf team that won the Washington State Junior Golf championship for a fourth consecutive year, shooting two-under par 70 to win the individual title.

Kinney went on to serve as an Air Force pilot in Vietnam, working up to Lieutenant Colonel before retiring after 22 years of service. He died in Spokane in 2004.

The 1950 men’s golf team included Kinney, Earl Allen, Ed Barfield, Stan Bruhn and Nick Puhich, and the 1951 team managed to continue the program’s state championship streak despite fielding an entirely different roster: Chet Hamer, Chuck Horensky, Don Mulligan and Fred Mercer as the championship-winning quartet, while Jim Richstad and Bob Crane appeared during the regular season.

Mulligan, now in his mid-90s, is the last surviving member of the team, and he submitted a video from his home in Arizona. Mulligan served in the Air Force before becoming a professor at Arizona State, and he golfed until he turned 92.

“With a name like, ‘Mulligan,’ you would think that I would be playing golf,” Mulligan said in his video. “And that’s what I did.”