Starting anew with Gonzaga and the Tourney

When I watched my first NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament as a student at Gonzaga, I was in a freshman dorm, with hundreds of other freshman watching and rooting for the same outcome.

My friends Brian, Jake, Spencer, David and I gathered in Jake's room, catching the action on a 12-inch TV that was perched on a bed. We sat on the floor and on chairs, huddled around the TV while Papa John's pizza and "cheese sneets" fill the air with the aroma of greasy, flex dollars-purchased goodness.

It was through that experience that I first truly felt like a college basketball fan.

Sure, I would always follow the games and fill out a bracket, but this was the first time that I felt invested in it. Those Zags on TV were our Zags - we were bonded to them through our months of support, our Bulldog-emblazoned paraphernalia, our rickety dorm hall rattling with excitement with each big play.

It was our team, my team. We were connected.

That experience was in 2006, and over the next four years I and every other Gonzaga fan felt that connection.

Fast forward to 2010. I'm coming up on one year removed from being a student at Gonzaga. The Zags, of course, are in the tournament once again. Only this year, things feel different.

It's not that I'm supporting the team any less, it's just ... different. As an alumnus, all of the sudden my perspective on the Zags run through the NCAA tournament feels slightly off.

I'm not quite sure how to adjust.

For four years, college basketball fans are right there in the middle of the frenzy. We watch the games on TV with friends and pizza. We pack the arena, screaming our heads off for 40 minutes. We track our teams progress, predict the games' outcomes, try not to miss a single second of the excitement. After all, we were students fans, that's what we're supposed to do.

But as a student fan at Gonzaga, I really noticed two types of alumni that stood out because of how strange they seemed.

The first was the older generation who filled the rest of the seats not populated by the student section. They were quiet, they would clap occasionally, but more often than not they were seat-fillers wearing school colors. It seemed like they didn't really care one way or the other, and if they did, they rarely showed it.

But by contrast, the other type of the alumni was on the opposite end of the spectrum. This type would graduate, then show up at the student section the next year, acting like nothing had changed. They would be wearing a Kennel Club t-shirt, be slightly intoxicated, while screaming at the referees and chanting "Defense Bulldogs Defense!" While the older generation struck me as sad at how much they changed, this group was pathetic at how much they refused to change.

I didn't want to be either one of those types of alumni. And yet, here I am, hours away from Gonzaga tipping off their 2010 tourney run, struggling over the type of identity I want to take on.

Right now it's a struggle to find that middle ground. I want to cheer enough to tell myself I haven't turned my back on my alma mater, but I also don't want to feel like the guy who is still wishes he was a college student, nearly a year after the fact. I don't want to sit on my hands with a ho-hum attitude, but I don't want to punch a wall after a heartbreaking loss.

It's an adjustment many of us 2009 graduates are facing right now.

Some people will choose one path or the other.

But for others, I suspect that middle ground will be found at some point. And that moment will come after Gonzaga tips off tonight.

It's hard to no longer be fully a part of something after dedicating your heart and soul to it for so many years, and we all wish that things would always stay the same. But at some point, everyone realizes a way to cope.

It's like the end of a long relationship. You had great times, but at some point, circumstances force you to part ways. For a while you reminisce about how good things were, and struggle with the prospect of a life outside of the relationship. But down the road, you bump into that person, and you see that each of you are doing well on your own, and that encounter finally gives you the closure to move on in your next chapter. You have the good memories to indulge you, but you realize you don't need it the way you did when you were younger.

Tonight, Zags fans get to bump into Gonzaga, and we'll realize what parts are important to let go, and what parts are important to hang on to.

The Changing of the Guard

Note - This column will appear in the 2009 edition of Gonzaga Spires.

At 5-foot-11, freshman guard Demetri “Meech” Goodson wasn’t exactly the biggest player to ever grace the basketball court for the Bulldogs. There were certainly larger players with larger-than-life personalities. But for a generation of Zag fans, it was the image of Goodson saving the day that will forever stay with them when they think of Gonzaga’s run through the 2009 NCAA Tournament.

With the Zags tied with Western Kentucky in the second round with only seven seconds left, Goodson received the inbounds pass, took it the length of the court, and put in a running jumper, giving the Bulldogs the win and sending them to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2006.

It was oddly fitting: Here was a 2009 team that featured two seniors – Jeremy Pargo and Josh Heytvelt – who were on the last Zag team to reach the Sweet 16 in 2006, and yet, the moment and the glory went to a young freshman. Those seniors received a shot at redemption for the 2006 heartbreaker, but it took the efforts of someone who wasn’t there to suffer that misfortune.

Goodson’s shot made a statement: A new chapter in Gonzaga basketball had begun.

The Zags entered the 2009 NCAA Tournament as a 4-seed, and were on a roll after cruising through the West Coast Conference season. This Zag team had been hailed as one of the most talented in school history, and expectations were high as the team traveled to Portland for the first two rounds.

But it wasn’t Gonzaga’s talent that would define their Tournament run. For all the accolades, highlights, and awards, it turned out none of it mattered. As it turned out, what would define this tournament was something that belonged to the Zags of old, the immeasurable quality of teams that never had the talent of this 2009 squad.

Heart.

Almost before anyone could blink in the first round, Gonzaga found itself trailing to 13-seed Akron at halftime 38-35. Suddenly, it was obvious that talent alone would not carry the Bulldogs to victory.

Pargo wore a look of anger, frustration, and focus as his team came out for the second half. He was the senior leader, and he was determined to not let another opportunity slip away. The Zags fought back, cheered on by the thousands of Zag fans who made the trip down. In the waning moments of the second half, Pargo threw down a vicious slam, turning the tide and pushing the Bulldogs to a 77-64 win.

As a senior, it was perhaps Pargo’s final defining moment as a Bulldog, because in a poetic changing of the guard, it was a freshman who would capture glory two nights later in the second round.

Against Western Kentucky, Gonzaga trailed again at the half, but found the strength to make another comeback. They retook the lead late in the second half, but WKU refused to go quietly and staged a comeback of their own, scoring nine straight points to tie the game with only seven seconds left.

“Meech” raced up the floor as the clock ticked away. Pargo was screaming for the ball, but the freshman refused to let rank be pulled. That moment belonged to Goodson. He nailed the runner and sent the Zags into a pandemonium.

But that moment proved to be the final happy moment for the Zags in the 2009 Tournament.

They traveled to Memphis for the Sweet 16, facing possibly the best team in the country: North Carolina. There were no glorious moments in that game, only two heavyweights trading punches back and forth. In the end, though, the Tar Heels proved just how elite they were, building a big lead over the Zags and never letting up.

After all the emotion of their first two games, the Zags just didn’t have another comeback in them.

The locker room after the game was a mixture of frustration and sadness. Seniors like Heytvelt and Pargo knew they would never play another game in a Bulldog uniform; their careers were book ended by disappointing finishes in the Sweet 16.

But the loss overshadowed another successful run in the Tournament – one filled with heart and determination. Those have always been the defining characteristics of Gonzaga basketball. The Zag legacy was carried on by a team that refused to quit.

So when a freshman who had never known those past teams took the ball coast to coast and scored an unlikely game winner, it became perfectly clear:

The torch had been passed.