Jim McElwain explains why he’s pulling for Gonzaga over North Carolina
By Andrew Olson
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Florida coach Jim McElwain has made his love of basketball well known this month. He has used multiple spring practice press conferences to heap praise on the Gators’ March Madness run, and even traveled to Madison Square Garden to watch Florida play in the Elite Eight. Just because UF is out of it, that doesn’t mean McElwain won’t be watching tonight’s championship game.
On Monday, the Florida coach talked about his ties to Gonzaga. Eastern Washington, McElwain’s alma mater, is located in Cheney, Wash. about 20 miles from Spokane, where Gonzaga’s compass is located. While McElwain was at EWU, he got to become friends with former Gonzaga athletic director and head basketball coach Dan Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald offered McElwain a spot on the Gonzaga staff in 1988, a story McElwain has told before on his radio program. McElwain was a graduate assistant at Eastern Washington (1985-87) and then a quarterbacks and wide receivers coach (1987-94). He also knows current Gonzaga coach Mark Few from that time.
“We were really good friends. Spent a lot of time there,” McElwain said. “Fitz (Fitzgerald) was the head coach, Mons (Dan Monson) was an assistant, Fewy (Mark Few) I think at the time … he might have been in one of the recruiting roles or whatever.
“It’s great to see somebody that’s put so many hours of work in and built it to something. Wasn’t ever handed to him.”
Gonzaga and North Carolina are set to tipoff at 9:20 p.m. ET.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
