'What are the chances?' Gonzaga legend John Stockton proud to have company from alma mater in Naismith HOF | Notebook

Aug. 16—SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Fifteen years before Gonzaga transformed into an undisputed college basketball power, the small Jesuit university in Spokane made a brief flicker on the national stage with a standout point guard from a high school just down the street. Gonzaga Prep's John Stockton captured WCAC Player of the Year in 1984, earned all-conference honors in consecutive seasons and was selected 16th overall by the Utah Jazz in the 1984 NBA draft. Chances are you know the rest of the story. Stockton's Naismith Hall of Fame induction call came in 2009, six years after the NBA's all-time assists leader wrapped up a distinguished, record-setting career with the Utah Jazz and 25 years removed from his final game in a Zag uniform. But would the point guard ever have company in Springfield, Massachusetts? The odds of another Gonzaga induction always seemed low. Lightning usually doesn't strike twice for a midmajor school in a small-market city like Spokane, but Stockton was always willing to make room if somebody else ever came along. "It's unbelievable and special. What are the chances?" Stockton said Friday, 24 hours before Gonzaga coach Mark Few officially joined him in the pantheon of college and professional basketball as a newly enshrined Hall of Famer. "You look back 30, maybe 40 years ago and you would've never thought any of this could happen. So it's pretty exciting for all of us." Stockton isn't the only one who would've found it hard to believe that Gonzaga — and by extension Spokane — would have multiple representatives in the Hall of Fame, considering how the program's trajectory looked in the late 1980s and early 1990s before Dan Fitzgerald, Dan Monson and eventually Few launched an unprecedented run over the next three decades. Before Gonzaga coaches could pitch potential recruits on joining a program that routinely won conference championships, made deep NCAA Tournament runs and sent players into the NBA on a nearly annual basis, they had just one legitimate selling point: a homegrown point guard who bucked the odds to become the first player from Gonzaga taken in the first round of the NBA draft. "He was the only one anyone could ever talk about the first 15 years on the recruiting trail, or 10 years," Few said of Stockton. Stockton still resides in Spokane and maintains a close relationship with Gonzaga's longtime coach, hosting dozens of Few's active and former players for offseason 5-on-5 runs at his Warehouse facility a few hundred feet from McCarthey Athletic Center. "It's super special," Few said of joining Stockton in the Hall of Fame. "He and I are great friends and I just couldn't have more respect for a human being than I do for him and how he's lived his life and been such a great example and been such a great torch-bearer for Gonzaga." As part of the enshrinement ceremony, members of the 2026 class were able to select presenters to join them on stage in Springfield. The only stipulation was that presenters must already be in the Hall themselves. Few started with a phone call to another 509 number. "Obviously the first one I thought of was John," Gonzaga's coach said. Stockton's second-youngest son, David, was 18 years old when he traveled to Springfield in 2009 for his father's enshrinement. A former Gonzaga walk-on who climbed the ladder to earn starting minutes for Few's Sweet 16 team in 2013-14 before setting out on a professional career, David was among the group of former players that traveled to the East Coast to attend Hall of Fame festivities on Friday and Saturday. "It's so hard to imagine this happening from a small town like Spokane and Gonzaga the school," David said. "Coach Few is what's right with basketball. Sticking around when most coaches would leave and you just don't see it anymore. "He was hard on me and as a walk-on, they treated us like they should've and they helped me become a better player and I'll always credit my ability to play any sort of professional game to my years with him, so I appreciate it." Respect from coach to coach Few's unrivaled accomplishments at Gonzaga have garnered deep respect from coaches at every level, including both of the NBA pioneers that joined him in the Hall of Fame's 2026 class. In total, there are 2,836 career victories between the three coaches honored at Saturday's enshrinement ceremony. Few accounts for 773 of those with Mike D'Antoni adding another 1,199 and Doc Rivers leading the group with a whopping 2,060 wins. Rivers, best known for his nine-year run with the Boston Celtics, which included an NBA title in 2007-08, has admired Few's work afar and acknowledged the difficulty of reaching college basketball's mountaintop from a midmajor program like Gonzaga. "Amazing," Rivers said Friday during a media session at Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut. "To me he's an innovator because he did it at a place — with us growing up, you had to be at UCLA, you had to be at these certain locations to build a winner one time. He keeps doing it over and over and over and over again. Every year he has a chance to win a national title. It goes back to what I was saying. People think winning it is easy and it's not. "Everything has to go right and it has to go right for him one day. That doesn't diminish anything he's done. He's changed college sports in a lot of ways because he proved the small market schools can be successful continually." D'Antoni, who had five coaching stints in the NBA and introduced the vaunted "seven seconds or less" offense, doesn't monitor college basketball during the regular season but can count on catching Few and the Zags every year in the NCAA Tournament. "I know he's an unbelievable coach at a great program from kind of a midmajor school, not like a Kentucky or whatever," D'Antoni said. "He's taken it to heights that are incredible. I don't follow college basketball that much, but I do tune in when they're rolling in the tournament. I love the way they play and their style and obviously to get him here, he's a great coach." On display in Springfield By Saturday afternoon, the Naismith Hall of Fame museum had already completed personalized display cases for each of its 2026 inductees. Few and family members toured the newly finished "Hall of Honor" exhibit on Saturday afternoon, a handful of hours before they strolled down a red carpet into Symphony Hall for the evening's enshrinement ceremony. The glass case commemorating Few included mementos from his career and possibly the most fitting symbol of his life away from the court : a used fly-fishing rod the coach donated to the downtown Springfield museum. The exhibit also included a fly-fishing photo, a Gonzaga NCAA Tournament ring, a Team USA pullover and a photo of Few with LeBron James from the 2024 Paris Olympics. Inside an adjacent room at the museum, visitors could scroll through a virtual, touchscreen slideshow detailing Few's coaching timeline and depicting different images from his 28 years at Gonzaga and run with USA Basketball. Few and other 2026 inductees each donated keepsakes to another display case in Springfield. The Gonzaga coach's selection included his 2021 Naismith Coach of the Year trophy, a game-used basketball from his 700th career victory at Pepperdine on Jan. 18, 2024, and a poster from the program's first Final Four appearance in 2017.