Troy Summers
Boxing Coach

Troy is an icon of boxing coaching in Snohomish County. He coached hundreds of county boxers during the 1970s and 1980s. He boxed as a youth and in high school in Deer Park, WA then attended W.S.U. one year in late 1950 on a boxing scholarship. He then relocated to the PNW and began working at Simpson Lee and Boeing.

Troy began coaching in early 1970 with a Marysville YMCA team. By 1973, he had started the Everett Firefighters Boxing Team and developed it into national/international prominence. While coaching, he continued to manage and further develop the successful auto sales and large septic tank service businesses he had started.

Troy’s many accomplishments include coaching:
• his son Bret, a Snohomish County HOF inductee, to a ‘76 national title.
• his son Todd to a ‘77 Jr. Olympic National Championship.
• the ‘82 National Olympic Sports Festival and ‘84 U.S. National Golden Gloves champion teams.
• Robert Shannon, also a Snohomish County HOF inductee, to an ‘83 Jr. World Championship & the 1984 L.A. Olympic Games.
• 11 national champions, 2 U.S. Olympic Team members, 1 professional world champion, and 4 other local boxers to berths in the ’84 L.A. Olympic Trials.

Snohomish County was a hotbed of amateur/pro boxing during the ‘70s and ‘80s as it was in many parts of WA and the U.S. Troy was a major player in this success as a coach, manager, trainer, mentor, and life coach for his boxers. His contributions to local, and national/international boxing earned him the ’84 Herald Man of the Year in Sports. According to, Ken Smith, one of Troy’s amateur/pro boxing proteges, …. “coaching boxing is Troy’s legacy, it’s what he was, an amateur boxing coach at the highest level of the sport”.