ANOTHER HERO TAKES THE SPORTS WHEEL FOR A SPIN

Another hero taking center stage is a reminder of who had been there before.

Who doesn’t like a hero? No matter the time or place, when someone separates from the pack, give them their due.

Last night the new hero was UCLA Bruin Johnny Juzang. What was heroic? He took a shot to tie the last game in the Final Four with the clock winding down.

And missed. But then he did something unheard of.

He followed his shot, rebounded the ball, and put it in the hole instead of just shooting, missing, and wringing his hands.

He was heroic, another hero, a sports hero, for about four seconds, or as long as it took an unusual player from Gonzaga to drive the ball across mid-court, stop and put up a long, Lillard long, jumper with time running out.

Jalen Suggs banked a heave off the backboard and ended the game. No overtime, no extra time, just the agony of defeat for UCLA and the thrill of victory for the Gonzaga Bulldogs.

On a wide world of sports Saturday night the thrill was real. The little guys won over the powerhouse for the honor of playing one more game, the big game, the last game of the college basketball season.

Here comes Baylor and Gonzaga for all the marbles.

Do We Need Another Hero

No matter how hard you look at the March Madness bracket, there are just some things you can’t see.

Where are the blue bloods? Where’s Duke, Kansas, North Carolina? Where’s Kentucky, Indiana, Connecticut? They either didn’t show up to this year’s Big Dance, or they were sent home.

And here comes undefeated, untied, Gonzaga zeroing in on their first title. After their first trip to the finals in 2017 ended with a loss to North Carolina, they’ve got more to play for this time around.

A loss would put them in good company for a small school. Like Butler in 2010 and 2011, a second place finish is a tremendous accomplishment. The only problem is it’s still second place.

Gonzaga has more to play for because they come into the final undefeated.

Undefeated has such a nice ring to it. One more win and Gonzaga joins good company. Beating UCLA to make the finals was poetic since the Bruins have finished four times what the Bulldogs want to finish this year.

Is going undefeated a big deal? Check with the ’72 Miami Dolphins for any questions.

It hasn’t happened before or since then.

College Basketball Gets Another Hero

It’s not the undefeated team, but the coach of the undefeated team, Mark Few, who is the hero.

In a profession where each job is a stepping stone to a better job, Mark Few took over Gonzaga basketball after the last coach bailed to the bigger school and was never heard from again. Well, he was heard from, but not as loudly as Few.

Gonzaga beat Minnesota in the tournament one year, so Minnesota hired the Gonzaga coach, which cleared the way for Head Coach Few.

How’s he done?

Taking over after Monson’s abrupt departure, Few was able to maintain the Gonzaga program’s success from his very first season and prevent the Bulldogs from being a one-year wonder and sinking back into obscurity. He led them into the NCAA Sweet Sixteen each of the first two years. He was only the second head coach in the nation to achieve this feat since the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. The following year (2001–02), Few set an all-time record for NCAA Division I men’s coaches by collecting 81 wins in his first three years as a head coach. The record stood until 2010 when Brad Stevens of Butler surpassed it. In 2017, Mark Few became the 3rd fastest coach to reach 500 wins in NCAA Division I history. The program’s success has continued as Gonzaga has made the NCAA tournament in every one of Few’s 21 completed seasons; indeed, he has been on hand for every postseason appearance in school history. 

Brad Stevens’ success catapulted him to the Boston Celtics. Few’s success has made him a Spokane legend for staying put.

Not Your Stepping Stone

The Oregon Ducks know too much about being a stepping stone.

Chip Kelly came in and changed the look and tempo of college football before deciding he needed a bigger pond to play in and answered the call from the Philadelphia Eagles.

His replacement, Mark Helfrich, had a similar home-grown feel as Mark Few from Creswell, Oregon. Coos Bay raised Helfrich was good enough to get the Ducks to the last game of the season and a chance to win a title over a dirty Ohio State.

He wasn’t good enough to keep the job after a down year, but good enough to join the Chicago Bears coaching staff.

Helfrich’s replacement was a much celebrated up and coming coach saying all the right things to get Oregon over the hump. Instead, Willie Taggert took a recruiting trip to Florida and got recruited to coach the only team he’d leave Oregon for.

After one year, he stepped over Oregon for Florida State, who dumped him early into his second season there. It was a money move.

Following a 4-5 start to the 2019 season, Taggart was fired during mid-season in November 2019. For the removal of Taggart, Florida State had to pay over $20M in buyouts, including about $18M to Taggart after the firing and over $4M paid to Oregon at his hiring ($3M to end Taggart’s contract with Oregon and additional $1.3M Oregon still owe South Florida for hiring Taggart away)

Mark Few has shown what it means to be a hero to the most important people in his life. We like those kind of people.

Few is an avid fly fisherman. He has chosen to stay at Gonzaga in part to provide stability for himself and his family, turning away coaching offers from larger schools over the years.

Do his players tap into the stability?

Comments welcome, sports fans.