NCAA final highlights friendship of Few, Williams

A practical joke in Mississippi illustrates the friendship between NCAA title game coaches Roy Williams, Mark Few.

Until the 1990s, Tunica, Miss., was known as one of the poorest cities in the United States. Rev. Jesse Jackson once called it “America’s Ethiopia,” and Sugar Ditch Alley, a neighborhood known for its poverty and open sewers, received widespread attention.

An influx of casinos changed the city’s fortunes and set the stage for its return to the national conversation in recent days, thanks to two coaches who will clash in college basketball’s national title game Monday at University of Phoenix Stadium:

Mark Few and Roy Williams.

The Gonzaga-North Carolina game has been tagged as one of many contrasts: West Coast vs. East Coast; mid-major vs. Power Five; Final Four novice vs. Final Four royalty. It is also one featuring a rich friendship between two coaches born 2,200 miles apart with careers firmly entrenched in different parts of the country.

“I like people,” Williams said. “I try to start everybody out in the middle. You can go either direction. We’ve played poker together. We’ve played golf together. We’ve gambled together.”

The depth of levity in a relationship is often a good sign of its healthiness. That’s where Tunica comes in.

In 2009, the two teams were scheduled to face each other in an NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 game in Memphis. On the Monday before, Williams reached out to Few to see if he and his Gonzaga staff were up for a night of gambling on the Wednesday before their Friday game, after the players had hit their midnight curfew.

Few said yes but Williams told him to think about it for 24 hours.

“I’m an older guy, I’ve been around a while (but) somebody might find something negative,” Williams said. “He said, ‘No, I’m in.’ … I called him the next day and he answered the phone and said, ‘Gamblers Anonymous.’”

The coaching staffs climbed into their cars after midnight, headed to nearby Tunica, lost money playing craps and headed back several hours later.

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Outside of the city, Williams was pulled over by police. He was speeding a bit but it was more because he was in a car with NCAA logos all over it. Law enforcement worried it was stolen.

After police realized who he was, Williams told them, “I’ll give you $100 if you’ll stop Mark Few. He’s about 15 minutes behind me.”

Few said he later learned Williams told police, “There’s another, like, little Ford Fiesta coming. Make sure you pull them over because they’re illegal, they don’t have seat belts.”

Alas, Williams was disappointed to learn the police never did pull Few over, but both coaches still chuckle about the story.

Few is just happy it stayed quiet all these years.

“I defer to him as (having) the best-kept secret forever, because I think we probably would have got crucified at the time for doing that.”

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The two knew each other first through mutual friends, including Jerry Green, who was an assistant on Williams’ staff at Kansas, and Mark Turgeon, now the coach at Maryland.

They soon bonded at Few’s first Nike coaches trip.

Few and his wife, Marcy, “didn’t feel like we were worthy,” the Gonzaga coach said. “We didn’t feel we belonged when there’s Roy and Coach K (Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski) and (Syracuse’s Jim) Boeheim and all these guys are walking around.

“And, bang, right when we got there (Williams) and Wanda took Marcy and I under their wing and treated us like we were anybody else. Couldn’t have made us feel better and more welcomed.”

Williams is so adept at cards that Few and his family have renamed a seven-card stud game “Roy Williams.”

“We were stuck at the lake two summers ago with my kids and we had a discrepancy,” Few said. “So we called Roy on the cell phone, and my kids now think the world of him because he picks up the phone and I put him on speaker and he had to explain ‘Roy Williams’ to them.”

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They are friends until Monday, when they are rivals.

For all they have accomplished, both still have something to prove.

A victory for Gonzaga would quiet the critics who all season long have said the Bulldogs wouldn’t find the same success if they regularly completed with the top teams in a Power Five conference.

A victory over the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Tar Heels would finally quiet critics, even if they are bit misguided for not appreciating Gonzaga’s 19 consecutive tournament appearances and strength of schedule in non-conference games.

For Williams, some have suggested his success has come from all the great players he recruits and not because he is a gifted coach.

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This year’s team has a different makeup from those of his past. It is not loaded with cream-of-the-crop players. His most recent recruiting classes have not been considered among the best in the ACC.

“In the first 10 years, we recruited 26 McDonald All-Americans, and the last three I think we got one,” Williams said.

He was talking about the impact academic fraud allegations directed at the university has had on recruiting, but it also speaks of his ability to coach up a team.

Both have something to prove tomorrow.

Both want to win, too, although surely the losing coach will be happy for the other.

Reach Paola Boivin at [email protected] and on Twitter at Twitter.com/PaolaBoivin. Listen to her streaming live on “The Brad Cesmat Show” on sports360az.com every Monday at 10:30 a.m.