How the Zags Saved our Marriage

My husband was the first one to say it – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it, but the Zags really did save our marriage.

I think it was during all the ruckus the 1998-99 team made, that we first started paying attention to Gonzaga basketball. That was the year Dan Monson took the Richie Frahm/Casey Calvary/Matt Santangelo team all the way to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.

We all know that now, but you couldn’t help but pay attention as this Gonzaga team made history. We, like others, vaguely knew there was a basketball team - when you could waltz into the Kennel and get a ticket for that night's game. At his gas station up the street, my brother worked on the school’s dilapidated vans in the early ‘80s, which was how they hauled the team around then. Dan Fitzgerald, I remember, would come and pick them up himself, sometimes being ferried over by a tall student folded into a cramped little car. We used to have lunch and drink beer at the Bulldog Tavern, but not because of the basketball – because of the good hamburgers and cold beer.

My husband and I were never much in the way of sports fans. Our daughter says we are behaving this way now because, when we were raising her, she lettered in music. So we spent most of her school years attending concerts and recitals, clapping politely and commenting on the lovely pieces we heard played on her violin. Rarely did we come up off the bleachers shouting “Call the foul!!!” Well, almost that one time when she didn’t get First Chair in the orchestra (and clearly deserved it). So, she says, we’re getting this out of our system.

And, yes, it was about the same time the “Cinderella” Zags team grew that year, with almost all of Spokane paying attention, that our little musician flew off on her life adventure to Seattle and our nest emptied. And we were a little bereft – of concerts, of what to focus on, of who to applaud for. I mean, musician or athlete, you know for 18 years that your child is going to grow up and go off somewhere, yet it catches you by total surprise. So we flopped around a bit. There was some sobbing (I won’t say who). Work didn’t satisfy, home didn’t satisfy; we lost our focus as little.

I was working out in my office, I remember, and begrudgingly turned on a little television to watch that Elite Eight game in 1999. I also remember thinking they played 4 quarters of ball per game, and was surprised when the second half was the end of their run, the end of their last game for the year. And I was sorry I hadn’t paid more attention before. I heard the term “March Madness” for the first time that season.

So we found ourselves paying attention the following year, too - trying to follow every game that we could, regardless of the fact that we didn’t have cable television. Around that time, my husband and I started having date nights - for dinner, in a sports bar – arriving early enough to score the perfect view of the best screen. We put in some late nights, learning to be fans. The next day, we’d talk about the game and who did what well and what could’ve happened. We looked forward to the next game.

We started wearing logowear.

Once, while we were running errands before we headed out to the chosen location for the evening (wherever we could find ESPN) – my husband reached across the seat of the car and grabbed my hand. “Are you excited about tonight?” he asked. I said oh yeah, sure am, can’t wait, and probably something about the team. And he said “Who would have thought the Zags would save our marriage.”

To us, Gonzaga basketball is just all about Spokane and why many of us live here. That you can watch the boys play on a Saturday, and then maybe run into one of them on Sunday afternoon at Safeway and get a chance to say: good game, son - you played some good ball out there. It’s because when the cameras scan the McCarthey Center crowd, it might be a cameraman from ESPN or it might be your neighbor’s cousin who does camera work for KHQ.

Because it is Spokane, you can send an email to Tom Hudson, the radio announcer of the games, and ask for clarification of a basketball term you don’t understand - and he’s nice enough to answer you. We love the way Greg Heister, who does the commentary for most of the local games, blubbers through his broadcast. We shake our heads and laugh at how he more often than not gets his statistics all bound up, because he’s just so danged excited about the game and can’t get his words out to tell you about it.

Craig Ehlo, his sidekick for a few years, created a whole new vocabulary for himself, and for us – he gave us words we’ve jokingly added to our own conversations – the meaning of which only we could know. We love that in the closing moments of a game, where our lead is strong enough, Mark Few gives everyone some minutes of play and clears the bench.

Now, we look forward to seeing the student athletes return to school in the fall. We talk about how certain players have improved their game, or bulked up over the summer. We recognize players from the other teams - and thoroughly enjoy the excitement of big non-conference games. We take note of our other players on the bench, redshirting until their time to play, and look forward to seeing what they've got to offer. Quiz us on where each player is from – and how many local or regional hometowns are represented on the team, and we’d know.

Sure, when we follow a player from his freshman year to the final game his senior year - we know he'll be flying the coop as well. But we're getting better at that.

Following Gonzaga Basketball gets us through our long Northwest winters; it gets us through the daily-ness of our lives and it gives us something to look forward to. Together.