GU’s perpetual senior class

Describe the typical college basketball fan and a bouncy, beer-fueled student may come to mind.

Some show up to games with signs, others sacrifice their bare chests to become human billboards. True showmen might put cheap, dyed wigs on their lids.

At Gonzaga University, there’s another type of blue-haired fan, but to call them senior citizens would not do justice to their energetic devotion.

For this group, following the fifth-ranked Zags is about much more than basketball, although they easily refer to “double-double” players who earn double-digit stats in two categories, or Adam Morrison’s effortless “fadeaway” jump shot.

It’s about community spirit, the allure of a local team on a national stage, and for some – a little mothering.

As Gonzaga plays San Diego today at McCarthey Athletic Center in the West Coast Conference Tournament, countless area television sets will be locked on to the action. Zags basketball is definitely appointment TV.

“It’s amazing,” said Cheri Kubo, executive director at Harbor Crest, a South Hill retirement community. “We have schedules posted all over the building. We’ve had some residents request to have them posted all over their rooms.”

Even 9 p.m. games, an inconvenience determined by ESPN, aren’t a deterrent.

“From 2:30 p.m., I was thinking, how much more time do I have to wait for the game?” North Side resident Bobby Stevens said about Gonzaga’s recent late tip at Pepperdine (which she later referred to as “the mauling in Malibu”).

When a few of this season’s games were aired on ESPNU, a cable channel with limited availability, 82-year-old Stevens said the hot topic at a ladies brunch was that her gal pals couldn’t watch their Zags. Stevens and her husband, George, went to Northern Quest Casino, where they watched the game standing in the non-smoking section.

When it comes to rehashing the game, the senior set can hang with the best of them, throwing around opinions as if bellied up to the bar at Jack and Dan’s.

“I’m well-aware of them,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said of the super AARP contingent. “They make us cookies, baked breads. … I think it’s great they look forward to the games.”

For 81-year-old Emma Wasson, who has season tickets, it’s about both basketball and heart.

“They need to do better on their defense than they have been doing,” Wasson opined last week. “They seem to tighten up.”

Wasson has been watching the Zags play for more than 30 years and has become famous in her own right for the way she treats each player like a son. Last year, when Ronny Turiaf was having trouble with his aortic valve, Wasson sent him cards and notes. She admitted at the time, “You just kind of fall in love with all the players.”

Stevens, meanwhile, told of a recent conversation she had with a doctor at his office. In order to protect the uneducated, she politely declined to identify him.

“He said, ‘It would be better if Morrison didn’t hog the ball,’ ” Stevens recounted. “I kept silent, because I knew the man doesn’t know basketball.”

Like some of the women who have adopted the Bulldogs, Stevens has had a long history with hoops. She played in the late 1930s at Ocosta High in Westport, Wash. The court was divided into thirds, the gym was a barn and the surface was gravel, but she caught the basketball bug.

By the time South Hill fan Ruth Stewart, 72, was a high school student in Miles City, Mont., in the late 1940s, the girls’ game had changed to two-court basketball, where players were assigned to certain areas of the court. Stewart, a Spokane resident since 1956, also lived through her kids’ basketball-playing years.

Over time, her attention shifted to Gonzaga, to the point where watching the games may be hazardous to her heart rate.

“I get a little anxious when it gets a little close,” she said. “Sometimes I have to leave the room, but I’ll drink a couple glasses of wine and it will settle me down.”

For Shirley Drury, being a Zags fan is serious business and one that requires some technical savvy. The 72-year-old North Side resident tapes and watches the games on TV while listening to the radio announcers. Afterward, she plays her tape and listens to the TV announcers. (Drury said she’s surprised some of the national announcers still butcher the pronunciation of “Gonzaga.”) Her library is stocked with three years’ worth of game tapes.

“My friends tell me I’m somewhat obsessed,” said Drury, a widow whose two children live on the East Coast.

Why such devotion?

“It begins with the Gonzaga experience, with the coaches,” Drury said. “They recruit players who have that special passion for the game and that special spark.

“What I really love is coach Few, when the players make some kind of mistake during the game, he is never ridiculing them in front of the TV camera. He always explains and teaches.”

Television cameras have become part of the scenery at Zags games. In 2001, the school signed a deal for a minimum of nine games to be televised. Three years later, it was increased to include all men’s basketball games, locally and in the Seattle area.

The exposure, coupled with the team’s success, has given all fans something to cheer about during the long, dark winter.

“They spend a lot of time watching and reading,” Gonzaga athletic director Mike Roth said. “They’re very knowledgeable.

“It’s a passion, and it’s a passion we enjoy. We encourage them.”