Everett CC Athletics enshrine 2025 Hall of Fame class

EVERETT — When Everett Community College inducted its 2025 Athletic Hall of Fame Class on Thursday, its headlining member was not in the room.

Chet Hovde, who led the Trojans women’s basketball program for 33 years from 1988-2021, was posthumously inducted alongside two of his former players, three athletes from other sports, as well as the 2013 men’s cross country team.

Hovde died on March 9, 2024 after a year-long battle with kidney disease at the age of 77. His wife, Joan, and son, Ryan, attended the ceremony and each gave speeches on his behalf, but Ryan believes that even if his father was there, he’d probably make Ryan give the speech anyway.

“He’s just such a humble guy. He hates being in the spotlight,” Ryan Hovde said. “He was so quiet and mild-mannered that, you know, I think he would have been shy.”

It still would have meant the world to the lifelong Everett native, who won 442 games as the head coach. Hovde spent three different stints coaching in some capacity for EvCC, beginning as an assistant with the men’s basketball team in 1978.

Even after departures for the University of Puget Sound in 1980 and Edmonds Community College in 1985, Hovde kept coming back home. In doing so, he created a home for hundreds, if not thousands, of basketball players who passed through the program.

Everyone who spoke about Hovde on Thursday mentioned his stoic demeanor. The only instance Joan could recall him getting fired up was an instance where an opposing player tried to take out an Everett player wearing a knee brace, which prompted him to yell and run out onto the court to defend her.

Above all else, Hovde was a man who loved to coach and who created a program and atmosphere that cared about the humans wearing the jerseys, not just the points they scored.

Nikki Anderson (Pewitt) and Erica Ryan (Brockway) could each attest to that. Both played under Hovde and were inducted alongside him in the Class of 2025. Both are mothers who balanced raising children while being student-athletes.

What other coaches may view as an obstacle, Hovde viewed as an enhancement. Their children were welcome to attend practices and sometimes could be spotted on the sidelines. Ryan still recalls her children climbing into her teammates’ laps in the locker room.

“The school and Chet, just so welcoming to everybody,” Ryan said. “As a woman, to get to be a competitor and a mother at the same time, you know, that’s what we want. That’s kind of everything, you know? So it’s just a testament to the program, Chet and the school to be so welcoming.”

Anderson, Pewitt at the time, played for the Trojans in 2002-03. As a senior at Monroe High School, Anderson gave birth to her first daughter, Jordyn. She managed to rejoin the team four weeks later and led them to the WIAA State Tournament appearance.

After a redshirt season at Western Washington University, she enrolled at EvCC to be closer to home and search for a situation that better fit every aspect of her life as a mother and student-athlete. In Hovde and the Trojans, she found it.

“Chet was perfect for me to kind of get my feet grounded again,” Anderson said. “Get my associate’s degree and move on back to the higher level. It gave me that starting space. It gave me a coach who understood me.”

In her lone season with the Trojans, Anderson averaged 18.9 points and 11.3 rebounds per game, making her one of 11 players in program history to average a double-double. She led the team to a 21-9 record and earned North Region MVP honors. She was recruited to play at Seattle University after completing her associate’s degree, and is now an assistant principal at Arlington High School after 15 years of teaching special education.

A year prior to Anderson’s lone season, Ryan was also a mother on the team, but under entirely different circumstances. A 29-year-old mother of two at the time, Ryan returned to the court after 10 years off at the insistence of her two young children, who were getting into the sport and wanted to see her play.

Ryan reached out to Hovde to see if there would be an opportunity for her to get playing time on the team, and soon enough, she joined the program. Playing alongside 2013 Hall of Famer Ciara Papac, Ryan was content to be a role player, but after Papac suffered a season-ending injury, she stepped in to fill the void.

Averaging 16 points and a school-record 14.6 rebounds per game, Ryan was later named the North Region MVP and the EvCC Female Athlete of the Year for 2001-02. She has since competed in adult leagues, run six marathons and had two more children. She took after Hovde by coaching all four at different points in their childhood.

For Hovde’s son Ryan, who also became a Hall of Fame coach in his own right for Clark College cross country and track & field, hearing from a handful of the athletes whose lives were impacted by Chet — most of whom he had never met before — made the night even more special.

“It’s just a weird feeling. It really is,” Ryan Hovde said. “But it’s also very humbling, and makes me proud of him.”

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In addition to Hovde, Anderson and Ryan, Scott Miller, Seth Pierson and Ryan Sells rounded out the rest of the individuals in the Class of 2025.

Miller was a three-time NWAC All-American in track & field. He won the shot put at the 2014 NWAC Championships with a then-personal record 50-10.25 throw, and repeated in 2015 with a new record 52-01.75. He set a school record in the discus (166-02), and later won the NWAC Championship in that event in 2015.

Miller went on to compete at Eastern Washington University, and is now a firefighter with the Kennewick Fire Department. He was also not in attendance at the ceremony, but submitted a pre-recorded video to be played, in which he credited EvCC for putting him on the path to meet his wife, Samantha, at Eastern Washington.

Pierson competed in cross country and track for the Trojans in 2010 and 2011. He was a repeat conference champion in the 1500 meters. His 3:52.82 mark from earlier in his second season ranks second in program history. He was named EvCC Male Athlete of the Year, and he later competed for Seattle Pacific University.

Sells starred both on the mound and at the plate in his lone season with the Trojans in 2012. He had a 1.67 ERA in nine starts, winning eight decisions while striking out 42 batters. At the plate, he had a .416 average with four home runs and 26 RBIs while leading EvCC to the North Region Championship. Sells is now the baseball coach at his alma mater, Mountlake Terrace High School.

The 2013 men’s cross country team won the NWAC Championship after scoring a perfect 15 points at the North Region Championship. The members of the team were Mohamud Abdi, Rogelio Bahena, Mitch Beard, Gary Davis, Stephen Dietz, Jack Espinoza, Mark Garcia, Keefe Hanson, Cody Hoskins, Bryan Islas-Martinez, Devin McCrary, Kris Mugrage, Mason Nicol, Jeffrey Ott, Alfredo Rodriguez, Matthew Schwittay, and Thomas Zabelka.

To round out the Hall of Fame inductions, the athletic department also handed out awards for the 2024-25 season, which culminated in softball player Emmajoy Wise winning EvCC Female Athlete of the Year and baseball player Micah Coleman winning Male Athlete of the Year. The softball team won team of the year.