“I can’t put into words how proud I am. They [the men’s basketball team] know how proud I am. If they don’t, then they don’t know me,” men’s basketball head coach Nalin Sood said after the Hawks defeated Garfield H.S. for 4th place at the 2024 WIAA 3A state basketball championship.
This was the last game of the season, and unbeknownst to most, Sood’s last game as head coach.
He has been the most successful of all head coaches, leading his team to the state tournament 15 times during his 24 year career at the helm. Sood has spent the last 41 years of his life in the basketball program as a player, with 37 of those years as a coach. With his leadership, he has led teams to 381 wins. Sood was also inducted into the Washington Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association (WIBCA) Hall of Fame in 2018, 11 years after previous coach Roger Ottmar.
Over the years, he’s gained countless accolades beyond basketball. With both a Masters and Bachelors’ degree in Business Technology, he will remain in the classroom at Terrace as the teacher for personal finance and business math.
Since he began his position as head coach at Mountlake Terrace in the winter sports season of 2000-2001, he became just the third head coach the school was founded in 1960. Before he took on the position, he assisted Roger Ottmar for 13 years. Merle Blevins was the Hawks’ original head coach. Blevins led the Hawks to their only state title in 1977. Under Sood, the Hawks have finished as high as 3rd. Over the years, he’s gained countless accolades beyond basketball. With both a Masters and Bachelors’ degree in Business Technology, he will remain in the classroom at Terrace as the teacher for personal finance and business math.
Sood has put in countless hours of effort for the men’s basketball team, and his dream since he was six became true because of this.
“I knew I wanted to coach when my mom dressed me up in a suit to go to a wedding,” Sood said. “Her and my dad were getting ready, and I went out in the living room and pretended I was coaching the Boston Celtics.”
Through dedication and putting his heart and soul into the game, Sood has proven himself to be one of, if not the best coach in Washington state, according to Sood’s own mentor and precedent, Roger Ottmar.
“I think he’s [Sood] the best coach in the state of Washington but he probably works harder than anybody in the state as well. He puts in the time and he sure has got the results.” he said. If one were to look beyond the uniforms and the court, Sood held the standards that his team needed in order to better themselves as players and as people. For example, he helped MTHS 2013 alumna and current assistant coach for men’s basketball at Eastern Washington University, Blake Fernandez, develop his love for coaching.
“When I moved back home after college, he gave me an opportunity to coach on his staff. At the time, I didn’t even really want to coach basketball, I did it as a favor to him because he was such a great mentor to me,” Fernandez said. “Working with him, I realized my love for basketball and coaching basketball. So I wanted to follow in his footsteps and be a mentor.”
Since he began his position as head coach at Mountlake Terrace in the winter sports season of 2000-2001, he became just the third head coach the school has had since its founding in 1960. Before he took on the position, he had been an assistant to Ottmar for 13 years.
When Sood received the announcement that he’d be taking over for Ottmar, he was grateful to be able to continue what his mentor had established. Spending 41 years with the MTHS basketball program has not only changed Terrace for the better, but has helped Sood himself realize more than he’d known before.
“Coaching at MTHS gives you a lens of looking at things from a different perspective,” he said. “Mountlake Terrace is a melting pot of socio economics, different backgrounds and kids.” This has brought him to decide that he couldn’t imagine working anywhere else – let alone coaching. Despite having such a huge impact on the MTHS basketball program, he doesn’t plan on influencing the next head coach.
“They [administration] made the right decision hiring me, and they’ll make the right decision with who the next coach is,” he said.
