Athletes - Mark Few

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	Athletes - Mark Few

Mark Few (born December 27, 1962 in Creswell, Oregon) is an American basketball coach, currently the head coach at Gonzaga University. Few, who has served on Gonzaga's coaching staff since 1989, has been the major constant on the sidelines throughout a period that has seen the Bulldogs rise from mid-major obscurity to become one of the most remarkable success stories in recent college basketball history.

The son of a pastor, Few attended the University of Oregon, graduating with a B.S. in physical education in 1987. He entered the coaching profession even before receiving his degree, serving as an assistant at his alma mater of Creswell High School from 1986 to 1988. After a season as an assistant at another Oregon school, Sheldon High School, he moved to Spokane, Washington in 1989, joining the Gonzaga staff as a graduate assistant. In 1991, he was promoted to a full-time assistant.

During the 1998-99 season, he was promoted again to associate head coach, making him the designated successor to head coach Dan Monson. This was the year in which Gonzaga became the nation's basketball darlings, making a run through the NCAA tournament that ended in a narrow loss in the West Regional final to eventual national champions UConn. When Monson left in the off-season to take the open head coaching job at Minnesota, Few was elevated to the top job.

After Gonzaga's 1999 success and Monson's departure, many observers thought that the Zags would be a one-year wonder and go back to their previous obscurity. Few immediately proved them wrong, leading them into the NCAA Sweet Sixteen in his first two years heading the program. This made him one of only two coaches to lead his team to Sweet Sixteen berths in his first two years as a head coach since the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. The following year (2001-02), Few set an all-time record for NCAA Division I men's coaches by collecting 81 wins in his first three years as a head coach. The program's success has continued; Gonzaga has made the NCAA tournament in each year of Few's tenure, and the school opened a new arena, the McCarthey Athletic Center, in 2004. Few has also been named the West Coast Conference Coach of the Year in six consecutive seasons (2001 through 2006); the only season to date that he did not receive this award was his first season as head coach (1999-2000).

As of the end of the 2005-06 season, his record as Gonzaga head coach stands at 188-41. During his time as head coach, the Gonzaga program produced its first-ever first-team All-American in Dan Dickau, other future NBA players in Blake Stepp and Ronny Turiaf, and current Player of the Year candidate and the country's leading scorer Adam Morrison. In 2005, he signed a contract extension that will keep him at Gonzaga through 2015.

He and his wife Marcy, married by his father in 1994, have two sons. Together, they have organized a charity golf tournament under the Coaches vs. Cancer umbrella; since the tournament began in 2002, it has raised over $1 million for the American Cancer Society.

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