Gonzaga super fan finally gets up-close look at WCC tournament he never misses

Ed Dzama has been nervous before plenty of Gonzaga games. But Monday’s West Coast Conference Tournament game in Las Vegas was a little different. For a whole bunch of reasons.

The longtime Zags superfan, who has been a casino craps dealer in Las Vegas for 34 years, has seen the Bulldogs play in person nearly 40 times in places as varied as Seattle, Maui, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and – of course – Vegas. He’s watched countless NBA Summer League games that have included a ton of former Gonzaga players. He even does all he can to get his work schedule changed so that he doesn’t miss GU games on TV.

Though the one thing Dzama has never done is watch his beloved Zags from courtside seats. On the Gonzaga bench side. Then layer in that he’s retiring this year and moving to Ohio to be closer to family, and you can see why the Zags’ 81-71 semifinal win over San Francisco gave Dzama more than a few butterflies in his tummy, even before the Dons made the game a lot closer than Ed and the rest of Zag Nation wanted.

So, was it better or worse to be sitting so close to the action when Gonzaga’s lead went from 24 points to single digits?

“Oh, it was way better to be sitting that close,” he said after the game had ended. “It forced me to stay in one place. If I had been watching this game on TV, I would have been so nervous that I would have been walking all over my house, maybe even outside.

“It makes my cat so nervous when I do that. Our cat now knows to go into another room if I’m watching the Zags.”

What makes all of this passion even crazier is that Dzama isn’t a Gonzaga grad. He’s never even been to Spokane.

Don’t take that the wrong way.

He’s also no newcomer or bandwagon fan. Nope. Ed has been all-in on the Zags since the 1990s … the early ’90s. He loved that they were always the small-school underdog. He can list every old-school Gonzaga legend and the games that made them special. It’s almost encyclopedic.

But there’s no question who is his all-time favorite Zag: Adam Morrison.

“Adam brought fire and excitement to every game he played,” Dzama explained last week. “His passion to win was off the charts, kinda like my passion for Gonzaga basketball.

“I am normally a quiet and reserved person … until the Zags play,” he said in one of the great understatements of fandom. “Adam has, and always will be, my favorite Zag.”

His most-cherished memory is when Morrison was inducted into the WCC Hall of Fame a few years ago in Las Vegas. He was in the room. He had goosebumps. He was an emotional mess. He also was as proud as he has been about almost anything in his life.

What makes all of that even better is that Morrison is almost as big of a fan of Ed.

“He was always at all of the WCC games, and would even come to see all of us play in the NBA Summer League games,” Morrison said before Monday’s game. “He’s just a genuinely, really nice guy.”

The two even talked on the day Gonzaga retired Morrison’s jersey to go over what he might say when he addressed the crowd in the Kennel that night.

“Once you learn about how and when he became a Zags fan, you like him even more,” Morrison said. “He’s never even been to a game in Spokane, yet he can tell you as much about this team’s history as anyone in the world.”

Now that Dzama’s going into a semi-retirement, going to game in Spokane is all but certain. Smart money would be as soon as next year. Unless something could happen in early April that every Zags fan dreams of …

“If there’s a parade, I’m going to be there,” Dzama said. “I’ve dreamed of being at that parade. They just need to say where and when. Nothing could keep me from that.”

Don’t think that just because he’s moving to Ohio that he’s going to miss the WCC Tournament in Las Vegas. He’s never missed one, and he never plans to miss one.

“I plan on being at each and every one, still,” he said. “The Zags are my team and I will go wherever they go.”

It’s also a good bet that wherever that is, Dzama is going to be more than a little nervous.