Short trip this year for Zags boosters

Avid Gonzaga fans often flee to California this time of year for “spring break for grown-ups,” a carefree weekend of Zags basketball, golf and sunshine.

This weekend the West Coast Conference men’s basketball tournament arrives in Spokane for the first time, and hundreds of local fans have mixed feelings about missing their annual trip. Facing weather predictions of gray skies and 40-degree temperatures, they’re trying hard to take it like adults.

“No. 1, it’s only fair it’s finally come to Spokane,” says Marty Pujolar, Gonzaga University’s recently retired alumni director. This year the team avoids a grueling travel schedule, the university gets to show off its new arena, and students avoid expensive 16-hour road trips. Still, he says, “I would much rather be going to California.”

As for GU students, say co-presidents of the Kennel Club, they’re thrilled to have the tournament in Spokane.

“I think students are really excited about it,” says Ian Wehmeyer, a senior finance major from Cashmere, Wash. “We’re used to it here – we have fun rain or shine.”

It’s the middle-aged GU boosters who will miss packing up shorts and flip-flops and fleeing to sunshine. The GU athletic department estimates that last year at Santa Clara University, 1,500 Gonzaga boosters and 400 students bought tickets to the games.

More local fans fly to this tournament than to Gonzaga’s NCAA games, largely because it’s less expensive. They can plan ahead to save frequent-flier miles or watch for bargain airfares.

“I wish I was on the plane headed out right now,” says Bonnie Mulvey, a retired Spokane nurse and Gonzaga fan who has traveled to tournaments twice at the University of San Diego and once at Santa Clara University. She relished the chance to sit beside a hotel pool in a GU T-shirt and forge friendships with fellow fans and players’ parents.

The tournament began in 1987, and in the early years, it was a handful of faithful boosters who launched the spring trips, usually to a California school. Traditionalists still head to a San Jose restaurant favored by former GU basketball coach Dan Fitzgerald. At Original Joe’s, they order big plates of ravioli or spaghetti with Italian sausage.

As the fan base grew, and hundreds flocked to San Diego three years in a row, GU fans trekked into the Old Town Mexican Café for tacos and margaritas.

They golfed, sunbathed at Mission Beach or shopped at Fashion Valley during the day, and they headed to Jenny Craig Pavilion on the USD campus for each Gonzaga game. At night, they crowded into the lobby of the team hotel and cheered as players strode in the door.

“People show up in San Diego with golf clubs, suntan lotion and shorts,” says Pujolar. “You always knew the people from Spokane because when they put their shorts on, the reflection off their legs would blind all the natives.”

And even though they had to travel farther, they outnumbered California fans from nearby conference schools.

When Gonzaga’s ticket allotment ran out, they’d call the school with the worst season record and buy tickets there. “The Gonzaga alums are pretty wily,” he says. “They have jumped on this thing, and they have figured the game out.”

Mike Tobin, a 1966 Gonzaga alum, lives in San Rafael, Calif., but he still considers his GU friends his best pals. He’ll travel to Spokane this weekend to join a group of 26 GU boosters. He points out that this year’s location gives Spokane a chance to shine.

“Putting on a hat strictly as a fan,” he admits, “if it were me, I’d have it in San Diego every year.”

Tobin cheered for the Zags at the University of San Francisco, St. Mary’s and the University of San Diego this year and relishes the way those out-of-town games attract Gonzaga alums and fans from all over California.

“In a way you feel like Deadheads,” he says. “It’s a happening. It’s like traveling with the Stones.”

Dave Christiansen, an insurance broker at Moloney & O’Neill in Spokane, cheerfully labels his love of the Zags an obsession. A 1976 GU alum and former baseball player, he flew to Maui and Los Angeles for Gonzaga games this year. In past years, he’s relished the chance to join the Spokane entourage to the spring conference tournaments.

“What a great deal,” he says. “We’re wearing shorts, playing golf with our buddies and in two hours the Zags are tipping off for a game.”

But he sees benefits to Gonzaga hosting the tournament in Spokane. “I think there’s a pretty good buzz going on now,” he says. “It’s really cool for the city of Spokane to be able to host it.”

Best of all, it allows Spokane residents who hesitate to buy plane tickets and hotel rooms a chance to see the games.

That’s exactly why the Kennel Club presidents relish the chance to shout “We-Are, G-U” and “This is OUR house,” in McCarthey Athletic Center this weekend. They’ll avoid scrambling for cash for hotel rooms and gas.

Depending on how many tickets other schools request, there may be room for anywhere from 200 to 400 students at Gonzaga’s games. (Around 1,200 students usually crowd into GU home games.) Many others will watch the games on big screen TVs and flock to a huge student clam feed, Wehmeyer says.

Matt Skotak, Wehmeyer’s co-president, feels nostalgic about winding down his last year as a senior. “Gonzaga basketball has been such a huge part of my life,” he says. “I’ve loved it.”

He calls it “the icing on the cake” to have the tournament in Spokane this year. “I’m looking forward to every aspect of it, and I’m going to soak it up as much as I can,” he says.

That’s why longtime GU boosters like Spokane attorney Dan Harbaugh are feeling philosophical this week.

He graduated from GU in 1970 and its law school in 1974, and he’s traveled to the tournament since it began in 1987.

At home in his season ticket seat at center court in McCarthey Athletic Center, Harbaugh’s known for standing up to yell and point an urgent index finger at errant referees. He jokes that he believes he possesses better court vision than they do.

Once he missed the deadline for buying a conference tournament ticket through Gonzaga, so he bought one instead from USD. “I got a ticket and ended up sitting next to the coach’s wife,” he recalls. “We ended up playing San Diego. She moved at halftime.”

This weekend, he’ll miss California sunshine.

But, Harbaugh says, “I think we’ll just have to grin and bear it. Spokane’s going to be a great host for the tournament.”