Mukilteo sports chiropractor receives national recognition
Published 1:30 am Friday, May 8, 2026
EVERETT — Marc Van Driessche discovered he acquired accepted into chiropractic college when he was 200 miles off of Alaska’s Gulf Coast.
More than 30 years later, he turned the second sports chiropractor in Washington to obtain the Sports Chiropractor of the Year award from the American Chiropractic Board of Sports Physicians.
Van Driessche has been working in Mukilteo for greater than 30 years at his personal follow, Beverly Park Chiropractic.
He was impressed to enter the sector when he was a premed scholar on the University of Alaska, Anchorage. He had taken a yr off of faculty to fish commercially whereas certainly one of his shut mates went to chiropractic college.
“About a year into his schooling, he called me up and said, ‘You should come here.’ And so I applied,” Van Driessche mentioned.
He went on to obtain a health care provider of chiropractic from Palmer College of Chiropractic in Iowa. Over the years, Van Dreissche has labored with varied athletes across the state, together with for blended martial arts; jiu jitsu; and varied highschool, school and semi-professional athletics.
After graduate college, he labored with semi-professional soccer groups in Washington, together with the previous Snohomish County Vikings. Lyle Ronning, a former Snohomish County Vikings participant, mentioned he wasn’t shocked when he heard Van Driessche obtained the award.
“He’s been working hard to gain inroads into the sports community for years, and he’s one of the few diplomats out there who’s done the higher education track,” mentioned Ronning, who’s now a chiropractor in Seattle. “He deserves the honor.”
In 2019, Van Dreissche was working with the Seattle Mist when it gained its third national title within the Lingerie Football League. He’s additionally labored with BMX athletes within the Nitro Circus Tour.
“Those athletes, they fly around at 80 feet with a 400-pound motorcycle,” Van Driessche mentioned. “So if that fell on top of them, they’re obviously not going to feel very good. Being able to fix those people up and have them do their job, I think is an extremely satisfying career.”
One of his favourite chiropractic experiences was in February, when he went to Switzerland to work with athletes within the Snow League, a winter sports competitors based by well-known snowboarder Shaun White.
“Taking care of the top 20 or 30 freestyle snowboarders on the half pipe and the top 20 or 30 freestyle skiers on the half pipe at 10,000 feet in the Alps was pretty cool,” Van Dreissche mentioned.
Van Dreissche has at all times been fascinated by sports, he mentioned, was once an athlete himself. In undergrad, he was an influence lifter and wrestler. He beforehand served because the chair of the Washington State Chiropractic Association Sports Council.
Van Dreissche accepted the Sports Chiropractor of the Year award on April 24 in Dallas.
“I’m not a very emotional person, I’m very flat-lined because I deal with really stressful situations,” he mentioned. “But I literally had a tear in my eye going up to the podium. I was shocked.”
Patient care is what has stored Van Driessche going for greater than 30 years, he mentioned.
“I don’t like to see people in pain if it’s not necessary, and therefore, if they come in here, they’re treated like family,” he mentioned. “It’s 31 years of the same stuff, so I think that’s important. You try to resolve a person’s physical problems that are stopping them from the activities that they want to do.”
Jenna Peterson: 425-339-3486; [email protected]; X: @jennarpetersonn.