EvCC coach Chet Hovde, who ‘lived for’ basketball, dies at 77

EVERETT — As a fundraiser at Everett High School in the 1960s, Chet Hovde and some of his friends played basketball for 24 hours straight.

Indeed, basketball was in the blood of the soft-spoken longtime Everett Community College women’s basketball coach, who died Saturday following a year-long bout with kidney disease. He was 77.

What did basketball mean to Coach Hovde?

“He loved basketball, he lived for it,” his wife Joan said. “He really lived to coach.”

Hovde grew up in North Everett and went on to be a basketball star at Everett High, graduating in 1965 and earning a scholarship to play for the University of Washington. He finished out his collegiate career at the University of Puget Sound.

“He was an unbelievable basketball player, probably as good as has ever come out of Everett High School,” said Dennis Erickson, the football-coaching legend who was Hovde’s classmate at Everett. “If they had a 3-point line in those days, who knows what he would have done. He was one of the greatest shooters I’ve ever seen.”

Hovde later became synonymous with the Everett Community College women’s team. He first took charge of the Trojans in 1979. Then after stints as the coach at UPS and Edmonds College, he returned to EvCC in 1988 and spent 33 years at the helm before retiring in 2021. Hovde’s lengthy tenure resulted in conflicting data on how many games he won, though Hovde credited himself with 501. Northwest Athletic Conference records show Hovde with a 438-475 record from 1988 to 2021, but that doesn’t include his earlier years. His teams advanced to 14 NWAC tournaments and placed on three occasions. He completed his tenure with his third North Region title during the pandemic-shortened season in 2021.

Hovde was perhaps best known for his subdued demeanor, both with his players and while on the sidelines during games.

“He said that when he first started coaching he was an angry coach,” Joan Hovde said. “Then he realized that it wasn’t a good look for the school or the kids for him to be screaming all the time. So he toned down his temperament. He never yelled at the girls, he just pulled them aside and told them what they needed to do to improve their game.”

“He was kind of a quiet guy,” said Rock Peterson, an Everett High School classmate and a longtime friend. “He never boasted about anything. He was just trying to get to work and win some games. I think his calmness helped a lot of his players.”

Hovde was also a member of a tight-knit graduating class. He was a regular member of the Class of 1965’s monthly poker games that began in the mid-1970s. And when he began needing dialysis in the past year, several members of the class helped take Hovde to and from appointments.

“He was kind of stoic about it,” Peterson said. “He’d say, ‘I’m fine.’ He didn’t want any sympathy.”

Hovde is survived by his wife Joan, his sons Chad, Ryan and Adam, and 10 grandchildren. A memorial service is tentatively scheduled for the afternoon of April 6 at the Everett High School gymnasium, 2416 Colby Ave.

Follow Nick Patterson on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.