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March 5, 2003 :: Home This story is part of "Tourney Titans," a special section profiling the top players and teams in the history of the Class 1A state basketball tournament. |
Players Stand the Test of Time By SCOTT SANDSBERRY YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC Basketball aficionados don't forget. At least, they haven't forgotten Dave Hovde. The star center of Selah's 1963 Class A state championship team was the second-leading vote-getter from a panel selecting the best players in the tournament's history, despite the fact that his on-court heroics came nearly four decades ago. For that matter, all of the players atop that voting list are now old enough to be getting a little gray around the edges. Hovde finished just behind a guy who graduated in 1964 (Blaine's Richard Hanson) and just ahead of two mid-'70s stars (Tim Evans of Blaine and Glen Dykstra of Lynden Christian). "That's amazing, after all these years," Hovde said when told of the panel voting results. "I have to look it up in the stat book myself to see if it was really true. It's been a few years." Like Hanson, Hovde doesn't remember himself as a world-beater. Far from it. Despite the fact that he was a four-year starter on teams that made it to state each of those years, was voted all-tournament three times in a row and went on to star at the University of Washington, Hovde tends to downplay his exploits. "I wasn't a real pure shooter like a lot of people. I got a lot of putbacks, a lot of garbage stuff," says Hovde, who as a high school senior stood 6-foot-6 and was a dominating rebounder. "Maybe I was a better shooter than I led myself to believe." At the time, though, he feared the opposite was closer to the truth. "I never wanted to be a hog-the-ball guy, didn't want to have that reputation," he said. "But that's kind of what it takes to be a great shooter -- to have confidence, that 'Gimme the ball, I want it.' " Hovde never was a gimme-the-ball shooter, and on the Vikings' 1963 championship team, he didn't have to be. Although he was Selah's leading scorer (19.4) over the season, four teammates -- Don Waldbauer, Ron Meyer, John McDevitt and Rod Alvord -- each averaged between 15.8 and 9.2 points. The third-highest vote-getter on the all-time Class 1A list, Tim Evans, didn't have that luxury. His 1974 Blaine team barely made it to state, coming in with an 11-12 record. And although he was sensational that year -- averaging 30.3 points and 14.2 rebounds in carrying the Borderites to a remarkable third-place finish -- it was his only state-tournament experience. So he was surprised the voting panelists still remembered him. "It's pretty amazing, to be this long ago. That's quite a surprise," says Evans, who now lives in Brewster and whose son Tyler plays for the No. 1-ranked Bears. "We had to fight tooth and nail just to get there my senior year. My sophomore and junior year, we didn't even make it to district." Surprisingly, neither Evans nor Hovde saw top vote-getter Richard Hanson play in high school. Hovde, whose team was in the opposite bracket from Hanson and Blaine in 1963, says the best Class A player he can remember was Lynden's Howard Heppner ("Good shooter ... good rebounder"), the panel's sixth-best player. Evans didn't see Hanson play, but actually got to play against him in a Blaine varsity-vs.-alumni game a decade later, when Evans was a talented, but spindly, sophomore and Hanson was a former collegiate All-America star. "There was a tremendous amount of respect, no question about that," Evans says. "I was out to show him what I was made of as well. What I remember most about Richard was his ability to see the floor, his passing ability, and he was still rebounding like a maniac. So, yeah, it was exciting just to be in that game." How did Evans fare? Did the legend swat every one of his shot attempts? "Oh, he may have gotten me a couple of times," Evans admits. "He's got really long arms." Almost as long as the memories of all those fans who recall them all.
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