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Mar. 29—Cluck-U Chicken.
That was the name of the only food joint open deep into a night in the early 1990s, somewhere near Santa Clara.
Details now fuzzy from the intervening decades, I found myself driving Dan Monson, Mark Few and Bill Grier on a midnight food run.
The best I can recall, Gonzaga had completed a late game in the West Coast Conference Tournament at Santa Clara, and I, the GU beat writer, was the only person in the hotel lobby at that moment who had a car capable of transporting four hungry men.
The three passengers in the economy rental were Gonzaga basketball assistants to head coach Dan Fitzgerald. The combined resumes of the three were meager at the time, but their influence on GU's rising trajectory already was being felt.
Gonzaga was still scraping by on the cheap, rosters mostly filled with the overlooked and marginalized. The try-hard guys of Zags lore, fueled by rejection or neglect.
Against odds, those three assistants would become Division I head coaches. Monson would start a streak of absurd success at GU and sustain a long career. Grier would coach San Diego to an NCAA Tournament win over No. 4 seed Connecticut.
And Few would become a Hall of Fame finalist with the highest winning percentage of any active coach in the nation. Not to mention, be the only college coach chosen to assist the 2024 USA Olympic gold medal team.
Surely, what Gonzaga has become was rooted in the dreams — delusional at the time? — of the three guys in that car.
Had somebody told me, on that night so long ago, that Gonzaga basketball would become one of the most unlikely success stories in the history of college sports, man, I'd have choked on my chicken.
----With his team over the past month or so, Mark Few used the term "desperation" to capture the urgency of their situation.
The Zags were nearing the end of a second consecutive season in which they had dropped from the Top 25 rankings, and they had lost more conference games than ever under Few (four).
Their consecutive streak of NCAA Tournament appearances seemed endangered.
Perhaps because of this pressure, Few had several times reminded his team and fans and media of not only how long this had gone on, but also how far they had to go to even get the thing started.
And that's the hook of this story, and the reason for the ancient scene-setting chicken prologue.
Each of the past two seasons reflected a reality of contemporary college basketball: Even though Gonzaga enjoyed impressive roster retention, new players occupied important roles, and their assimilation, and the refinement of their contributions, required time.
Patience is not a strong suit for fans, social media, or ranking agencies.
In both seasons, Few and his staff instituted changes to the starting lineup and rotation, and laid out for them the necessity of playing with greater intensity.
They responded both years; last year advancing to the NCAA Sweet 16 for a record-tying ninth consecutive time. This season, although finishing three games back in the regular season, a win in the West Coast Conference Tournament earned the NCAA automatic-qualifying bid.
Their tournament-appearance record stretched to 26 (27 if including the 2020 tournament for which the Zags qualified, but was not held due to COVID) — second longest behind Kansas.
Nobody outside the inner sphere knows if Few brought up the word "streak" along the way, but the unprecedented skein of success for the Gonzaga men's basketball team had to loom like a hungry beast that demanded to be fed.
Few is a coach, at his core, but Gonzaga basketball has become such a megalithic athletic corporation that the job must increasingly force him to extend his executive function. It has to feel, more than ever, his role has to be one of a CEO, with the players as the product, fans and boosters the stockholders.
Stocks were slipping.
"Some of these streaks are crazy," he said. "This year has been harder than ever. (To get to the 28th straight conference tournament) title game is unbelievable. Not as unbelievable as making the NCAA Tournament 27 straight years."
It seemed important to him to remind players, fans (and media, he stressed) that getting in the NCAAs wasn't a guaranteed entitlement, and the only way was to earn it.
"When something happens over the course of time, I think we all have a tendency to expect it to happen," Few said. "Human nature, right?"
He was asked: What, then, would you like people to understand about the Zags' continued success?
"Just how hard it is," he said. "I mean, if it was so easy ... there would be more of us that have done it 27 straight times."
When he stressed that "it's really, really, really hard," he might have been justified in adding another "really" or two.
----Yes, human nature. Gonzaga has been invited to the NCAA Tournament beyond the lifespan of every Zags player. Surely, that's a convincing recruiting chip. It's Few's task, then, to remind the players that it doesn't happen without the work.
The chances of nearly three decades of uninterrupted success, when driven by young men in a highly competitive environment? Especially when an injury, bad bounce or hot opponent at the wrong time could cause the whole thing to snap?
Incalculable.
Or maybe not.
Ryan Herzog, associate professor of economics at GU, was asked to examine the probabilities. If considered as a truly random event, like pulling numbers out of a hat (to correlate to members of the WCC's chances of winning the automatic bid to the NCAAs), and having that repeat 27 times, the odds are 1 in 2.685 septillion (24 zeros).
Herzog then added a subjective element to reflect how the Zags shortened their odds with improved play over the years, and came up with the still-astounding chance of a 27-year-streak as 1 in 35,000.
So, yeah, really, really, really hard. Really.
----Something else Few mentioned recently in regard to the streak of success: It wasn't always like this.
When talking about GU and Saint Mary's meeting in the WCC Tournament title game, he tossed in this: "... it's amazing if you think of where we both started from."
Saint Mary's coach Randy Bennett knew well where Gonzaga once stood in the basketball world. He had been a graduate assistant at Idaho under coach Tim Floyd for two years before Fitzgerald gave Few a chance as a grad assistant.
Few's first year, 1989-90, the Zags went 8-20 and were ranked 225th out of 292 Division I teams. The WCC was considered the 27th conference in the nation, out of 33. From a regional perspective, Eastern Washington was 140, Washington State was 139 and Idaho 70th — all seemingly better positioned to rise into national contention than GU.
Zag people sometimes bristle when labeled a "midmajor" team. But midmajor would have been a compliment in the early '90s.
"(Few) was a junior varsity coach at a small Oregon high school," recalled Fitzgerald in a 2000 interview. "He was making $1,500 when we got him, and I tried to get him bartending jobs just to keep him going."
Over the years, Few, Monson and Grier have told stories from those have-not days. These comments have been recovered from various sources, and worth a reminder to the newer fans.
----The recruiting budget was nearly nonexistent.
Few said it was common to schedule recruiting trips to the same locations as coaching friends from more well-to-do schools so they could mooch a few free hotel nights on their couches. "That happened all the time — 90% of the time. We used to sleep in the car, too."
Recruiting trips to the Bay Area included borrowing an unreliable Ford Tempo from Fitzgerald's brother, Jim, to spare the cost of a rental.
That's how it had to be done. "You'd go on the road for 30 days, and (Fitz) would give you $200," Few said. "It didn't take long to do the math."
Fitzgerald often told his young assistants not to bother with prospects who had other serious offers. His experience was that it was a waste of time. Monson and Few ignored that advice, and recalled a tandem recruiting pitch to one such recruit who was probably out of their league.
Their build-up of Gonzaga's appeal during a home visit was rudely received. The player's father had leaned back in his chair, fallen asleep, and was snoring loudly.
After GU became a national brand, most finally learned to pronounce Gon-ZAG-a, although the moderator of player/coach interviews in the recent first- and second-round games in Wichita still called them "Gon-Zog-a."
Few had heard much worse in the early days, saying that occasionally he would be addressed as a coach from "Gonzales University."
It didn't dissuade Few.
"Of all the guys who worked for me, (Few) turned over the most rocks," Fitzgerald said of his recruiting tenacity. "He was a scrounger who would go out there and mine some good guys. The thing I really loved about that guy, if you ever tried to bully him, man, he'd shove it right back at you."
----Critics of Gonzaga success point out that the level of competition in the West Coast Conference gives the Zags an easier path to the NCAAs. Although, on the other side, GU earns negative points in the ratings because of a lower strength of schedule.
From Few's perspective, as configured, the conference is harder to win than ever.
Two points. 1) When GU started turning things around, every other WCC team had at least an equal chance of becoming the conference powerhouse. Some a much greater chance, actually.
Pepperdine had a richer history, an appealing campus and broad recruiting base. Loyola Marymount got hot for a while and coach Paul Westhead left. When BYU came in, it had greater resources and facilities, but GU beat the Cougars all six times they met in the conference tournament, four of those in the title game.
And, 2) the Zags over the years countered the low conference rating by setting up a murderers' row of nonconference opponents in November and December every season, to bolster their national profile, and also appeal to high-level recruits.
GU and Saint Mary's are the only two in the conference to have consistently risen. In both cases, the head coaches stayed through the entire process despite more lucrative offers. Not coincidental.
----Yes, the numbers are gaudy. Twenty-six (or 27) consecutive NCAA berths (behind only Michigan State's), 16 consecutive (nation-leading) opening-round victories, nine consecutive Sweet 16s (tied NCAA record, ended in the Round of 32 this year).
At the WCC Tournament, Few said he gave his team this reminder: "Hey, guys, regardless of what our fans think and what everyone thinks, man, you've got to quality for the NCAA Tournament. We've done it so many times in a row that everybody thinks we're entitled to it, and that's not how it works."
These records, this status and recognition, have been earned, he told them.
"We always bring up some stories and talk about them," Few said of how far the program has come. "I share them with our team. I think it's valuable stuff to know ... nothing was ever gifted to the Gonzaga program. I wish everybody in college athletics would kind of understand that."
He referenced the challenges off the court. Upgrading the arena, the facilities, coaching salaries. "Nobody ever just built it because we complained ... I mean, we earned it. Nothing was ever given until we did."
Few is 62. The Hall of Fame awaits. He said he's still "... as competitive as anybody, too crazy competitive ... you get hooked on winning. You want to win everything."
Under Few, the Zags twice played in the national title game. He's won 44 NCAA Tournament games, trailing only John Calipari, Bill Self and Tom Izzo.
Long-time friend and former Washington State coach Kelvin Sampson, who coached No. 2-ranked Houston against the Zags in this year's Round of 32, witnessed the improbable rise Few had accomplished at Gonzaga.
"When you are playing Gonzaga, you are playing one of the elite programs in the history of the game," Sampson said. "Now all these years later, (Few) is not one of the best coaches in our game, he's one of the best coaches our game has ever seen."
That's a long road traveled, every honor earned, not given. And that's not something that should be taken for granted.
Continue reading...
That was the name of the only food joint open deep into a night in the early 1990s, somewhere near Santa Clara.
Details now fuzzy from the intervening decades, I found myself driving Dan Monson, Mark Few and Bill Grier on a midnight food run.
The best I can recall, Gonzaga had completed a late game in the West Coast Conference Tournament at Santa Clara, and I, the GU beat writer, was the only person in the hotel lobby at that moment who had a car capable of transporting four hungry men.
The three passengers in the economy rental were Gonzaga basketball assistants to head coach Dan Fitzgerald. The combined resumes of the three were meager at the time, but their influence on GU's rising trajectory already was being felt.
Gonzaga was still scraping by on the cheap, rosters mostly filled with the overlooked and marginalized. The try-hard guys of Zags lore, fueled by rejection or neglect.
Against odds, those three assistants would become Division I head coaches. Monson would start a streak of absurd success at GU and sustain a long career. Grier would coach San Diego to an NCAA Tournament win over No. 4 seed Connecticut.
And Few would become a Hall of Fame finalist with the highest winning percentage of any active coach in the nation. Not to mention, be the only college coach chosen to assist the 2024 USA Olympic gold medal team.
Surely, what Gonzaga has become was rooted in the dreams — delusional at the time? — of the three guys in that car.
Had somebody told me, on that night so long ago, that Gonzaga basketball would become one of the most unlikely success stories in the history of college sports, man, I'd have choked on my chicken.
----With his team over the past month or so, Mark Few used the term "desperation" to capture the urgency of their situation.
The Zags were nearing the end of a second consecutive season in which they had dropped from the Top 25 rankings, and they had lost more conference games than ever under Few (four).
Their consecutive streak of NCAA Tournament appearances seemed endangered.
Perhaps because of this pressure, Few had several times reminded his team and fans and media of not only how long this had gone on, but also how far they had to go to even get the thing started.
And that's the hook of this story, and the reason for the ancient scene-setting chicken prologue.
Each of the past two seasons reflected a reality of contemporary college basketball: Even though Gonzaga enjoyed impressive roster retention, new players occupied important roles, and their assimilation, and the refinement of their contributions, required time.
Patience is not a strong suit for fans, social media, or ranking agencies.
In both seasons, Few and his staff instituted changes to the starting lineup and rotation, and laid out for them the necessity of playing with greater intensity.
They responded both years; last year advancing to the NCAA Sweet 16 for a record-tying ninth consecutive time. This season, although finishing three games back in the regular season, a win in the West Coast Conference Tournament earned the NCAA automatic-qualifying bid.
Their tournament-appearance record stretched to 26 (27 if including the 2020 tournament for which the Zags qualified, but was not held due to COVID) — second longest behind Kansas.
Nobody outside the inner sphere knows if Few brought up the word "streak" along the way, but the unprecedented skein of success for the Gonzaga men's basketball team had to loom like a hungry beast that demanded to be fed.
Few is a coach, at his core, but Gonzaga basketball has become such a megalithic athletic corporation that the job must increasingly force him to extend his executive function. It has to feel, more than ever, his role has to be one of a CEO, with the players as the product, fans and boosters the stockholders.
Stocks were slipping.
"Some of these streaks are crazy," he said. "This year has been harder than ever. (To get to the 28th straight conference tournament) title game is unbelievable. Not as unbelievable as making the NCAA Tournament 27 straight years."
It seemed important to him to remind players, fans (and media, he stressed) that getting in the NCAAs wasn't a guaranteed entitlement, and the only way was to earn it.
"When something happens over the course of time, I think we all have a tendency to expect it to happen," Few said. "Human nature, right?"
He was asked: What, then, would you like people to understand about the Zags' continued success?
"Just how hard it is," he said. "I mean, if it was so easy ... there would be more of us that have done it 27 straight times."
When he stressed that "it's really, really, really hard," he might have been justified in adding another "really" or two.
----Yes, human nature. Gonzaga has been invited to the NCAA Tournament beyond the lifespan of every Zags player. Surely, that's a convincing recruiting chip. It's Few's task, then, to remind the players that it doesn't happen without the work.
The chances of nearly three decades of uninterrupted success, when driven by young men in a highly competitive environment? Especially when an injury, bad bounce or hot opponent at the wrong time could cause the whole thing to snap?
Incalculable.
Or maybe not.
Ryan Herzog, associate professor of economics at GU, was asked to examine the probabilities. If considered as a truly random event, like pulling numbers out of a hat (to correlate to members of the WCC's chances of winning the automatic bid to the NCAAs), and having that repeat 27 times, the odds are 1 in 2.685 septillion (24 zeros).
Herzog then added a subjective element to reflect how the Zags shortened their odds with improved play over the years, and came up with the still-astounding chance of a 27-year-streak as 1 in 35,000.
So, yeah, really, really, really hard. Really.
----Something else Few mentioned recently in regard to the streak of success: It wasn't always like this.
When talking about GU and Saint Mary's meeting in the WCC Tournament title game, he tossed in this: "... it's amazing if you think of where we both started from."
Saint Mary's coach Randy Bennett knew well where Gonzaga once stood in the basketball world. He had been a graduate assistant at Idaho under coach Tim Floyd for two years before Fitzgerald gave Few a chance as a grad assistant.
Few's first year, 1989-90, the Zags went 8-20 and were ranked 225th out of 292 Division I teams. The WCC was considered the 27th conference in the nation, out of 33. From a regional perspective, Eastern Washington was 140, Washington State was 139 and Idaho 70th — all seemingly better positioned to rise into national contention than GU.
Zag people sometimes bristle when labeled a "midmajor" team. But midmajor would have been a compliment in the early '90s.
"(Few) was a junior varsity coach at a small Oregon high school," recalled Fitzgerald in a 2000 interview. "He was making $1,500 when we got him, and I tried to get him bartending jobs just to keep him going."
Over the years, Few, Monson and Grier have told stories from those have-not days. These comments have been recovered from various sources, and worth a reminder to the newer fans.
----The recruiting budget was nearly nonexistent.
Few said it was common to schedule recruiting trips to the same locations as coaching friends from more well-to-do schools so they could mooch a few free hotel nights on their couches. "That happened all the time — 90% of the time. We used to sleep in the car, too."
Recruiting trips to the Bay Area included borrowing an unreliable Ford Tempo from Fitzgerald's brother, Jim, to spare the cost of a rental.
That's how it had to be done. "You'd go on the road for 30 days, and (Fitz) would give you $200," Few said. "It didn't take long to do the math."
Fitzgerald often told his young assistants not to bother with prospects who had other serious offers. His experience was that it was a waste of time. Monson and Few ignored that advice, and recalled a tandem recruiting pitch to one such recruit who was probably out of their league.
Their build-up of Gonzaga's appeal during a home visit was rudely received. The player's father had leaned back in his chair, fallen asleep, and was snoring loudly.
After GU became a national brand, most finally learned to pronounce Gon-ZAG-a, although the moderator of player/coach interviews in the recent first- and second-round games in Wichita still called them "Gon-Zog-a."
Few had heard much worse in the early days, saying that occasionally he would be addressed as a coach from "Gonzales University."
It didn't dissuade Few.
"Of all the guys who worked for me, (Few) turned over the most rocks," Fitzgerald said of his recruiting tenacity. "He was a scrounger who would go out there and mine some good guys. The thing I really loved about that guy, if you ever tried to bully him, man, he'd shove it right back at you."
----Critics of Gonzaga success point out that the level of competition in the West Coast Conference gives the Zags an easier path to the NCAAs. Although, on the other side, GU earns negative points in the ratings because of a lower strength of schedule.
From Few's perspective, as configured, the conference is harder to win than ever.
Two points. 1) When GU started turning things around, every other WCC team had at least an equal chance of becoming the conference powerhouse. Some a much greater chance, actually.
Pepperdine had a richer history, an appealing campus and broad recruiting base. Loyola Marymount got hot for a while and coach Paul Westhead left. When BYU came in, it had greater resources and facilities, but GU beat the Cougars all six times they met in the conference tournament, four of those in the title game.
And, 2) the Zags over the years countered the low conference rating by setting up a murderers' row of nonconference opponents in November and December every season, to bolster their national profile, and also appeal to high-level recruits.
GU and Saint Mary's are the only two in the conference to have consistently risen. In both cases, the head coaches stayed through the entire process despite more lucrative offers. Not coincidental.
----Yes, the numbers are gaudy. Twenty-six (or 27) consecutive NCAA berths (behind only Michigan State's), 16 consecutive (nation-leading) opening-round victories, nine consecutive Sweet 16s (tied NCAA record, ended in the Round of 32 this year).
At the WCC Tournament, Few said he gave his team this reminder: "Hey, guys, regardless of what our fans think and what everyone thinks, man, you've got to quality for the NCAA Tournament. We've done it so many times in a row that everybody thinks we're entitled to it, and that's not how it works."
These records, this status and recognition, have been earned, he told them.
"We always bring up some stories and talk about them," Few said of how far the program has come. "I share them with our team. I think it's valuable stuff to know ... nothing was ever gifted to the Gonzaga program. I wish everybody in college athletics would kind of understand that."
He referenced the challenges off the court. Upgrading the arena, the facilities, coaching salaries. "Nobody ever just built it because we complained ... I mean, we earned it. Nothing was ever given until we did."
Few is 62. The Hall of Fame awaits. He said he's still "... as competitive as anybody, too crazy competitive ... you get hooked on winning. You want to win everything."
Under Few, the Zags twice played in the national title game. He's won 44 NCAA Tournament games, trailing only John Calipari, Bill Self and Tom Izzo.
Long-time friend and former Washington State coach Kelvin Sampson, who coached No. 2-ranked Houston against the Zags in this year's Round of 32, witnessed the improbable rise Few had accomplished at Gonzaga.
"When you are playing Gonzaga, you are playing one of the elite programs in the history of the game," Sampson said. "Now all these years later, (Few) is not one of the best coaches in our game, he's one of the best coaches our game has ever seen."
That's a long road traveled, every honor earned, not given. And that's not something that should be taken for granted.
Continue reading...
