Kamiakin basketball player continues family tradition

If you have watched Kamiakin boys basketball over the past few seasons, you have no doubt noticed the growing presence of the Braves’ big man in the middle, Hayden Nelson.

Entertain the thought of him in a Richland Bombers uniform, and you can picture what almost became a reality.

That is until his mother Heidi (née Hovde) Nelson, a former Kamiakin hoops standout herself, couldn’t stand the thought anymore.

“That is one thing that was not going to happen. I was OK with anywhere else (but Richland),” his mom said.

Hayden attended Enterprise Middle School in Richland as an eighth-grader because his dad, Marc Nelson, was the principal there. However, because the Nelson home was within the boundaries of the Kennewick School District, Hayden decided to attend Kamiakin, following in the basketball footsteps of Heidi (a 1988 graduate), his three aunts — Katrina (1990), Gretl (1991) and Liesl (1994) Hovde — and his sisters, Kaylee (2012) and Courtney Nelson (2013).

Yeah, right. As if he had any choice in the matter.

“I had to be a Brave and no other. It’s been kind of a dream to be in the (Kamiakin) Hall of Fame, just to get up there with the girls,” said the 6-foot-8 senior, referring to his mom and sister, whose pictures are among the hundreds hanging proudly in the gym foyer.

Considering his play over the past two seasons, there’s a good possibility of Hayden becoming the first male member of his clan in the Braves’ HOF. He has paced his team in scoring and rebounding for the past two seasons.

This season, he’s averaging 15.6 points and nine rebounds a game while Kamiakin (11-3 overall, 5-3 Mid-Columbia Conference) fights for the top Class 3A spot to the District 5 tournament beginning Feb. 9.

“He just does it all for us,” Braves coach Brian Meneely said. “There’s not a thing we don’t ask him to do, and he enjoys the challenge of it. He’s our security blanket in the sense that he covers up so much.”

One reason Nelson is able to handle such an array of responsibilities is that he has played significant minutes at every position on the floor since he started playing basketball in first grade. He started out playing the post, but when other players hit their growth spurt, Nelson — still just a 5-10 freshman — switched to point guard. There, he flourished and enjoyed learning how to run the show.

“I really liked being the floor general, orchestrating what goes on,” he said.

Of course, he also learned another not-so-subtle nuance of the position: “If something goes wrong, it’s generally on you.”

He grew to 6-3 as a sophomore and got his first taste of playing on the wing, which he said “gives you a lot of options. A lot of other people can set you up so you can drive, shoot or pass.”

But when Nelson hit 6-6 as a junior, Meneely knew it was time to send him back into the post, a position that runs in his blood. His mom, who played in college at Eastern Washington and Central Washington, remains Kamiakin’s career rebounding leader on the girls side, although Hayden kids his mom about those totals.

“I’ve seen a couple game films. I always give her a hard time because I was seeing her missing all these shots. I told her she was just padding her stats,” he said.

His dad — a 6-8 forward at Bethel College from 1987-90 — ranks third on the school’s all-time field-goal percentage list at 58.6 percent. Hayden’s grandfather, Dave Hovde, played center at the University of Washington, leading the Huskies in rebounding in 1966-67. While there, he also battled another young center from UCLA named Lew Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Another of Hayden’s biggest influences is his sister Courtney, who gave no quarter in their constant court duels while growing up.

“She’s really strong and real aggressive. She played more like a dude,” Hayden said of his sister, now a junior and All-PacWest Conference guard at California Baptist University. “She refuses to play me now.”

Watching her son on the court brings Heidi back to her more competitive days, and she certainly doesn’t hold back when things get exciting.

“I pretty much become him,” she said. “The last game, I nearly took out two people playing defense for him (in the stands).”

When it comes to her son’s future, she doesn’t have to worry. Thanks to the Running Start program at Columbia Basin College, Hayden, an honor roll student, is on track to graduate with his associate degree.

He also will have the opportunity to play at the next level if he chooses. Corban University, George Fox, Lewis-Clark State and Whitman are among the schools that have shown interest.

“He needs to go to a place where he can visualize himself being a part of the school, not just because they’re winning or he’s on scholarship,” Heidi said. “That might mean just going to school and not playing.”

MCC Scoring leaders

This story was originally published January 20, 2016 at 5:25 PM with the headline "Kamiakin basketball player continues family tradition."