Never heard of it till we went to his graduation

beautiful campus

but never knew where it was.

Gonza-What?

I'm sure it's annoying to people who are alumni and current students. But, then, I live in Minnesota, which has many places that are not pronounced as you'd expect. My favorite place here is Wayzata. People here pronounced it as WyZEHta. It's a stumbling word for many new TV news folks who have moved here from other places.

Another one is Gervais Lake. Although it is named after a French explorer, the locals pronounce it as Jarvis. Took me a while to get that one right.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]All things in moderation, including moderation.[/center][/font][hr]

Sorry they lost ( though not a bball fan.. I'll stick with my Seahawks!)

Of Gonzaga. We're always excited when a school from the NW is in the hunt. They're a small school...it's impressive that they made it to the finals.

Never knew it was in Washington State until this year.

I was surprised at its location. I don't know why, really, but I was.

It sounds like the kind of place that should be located in California's Inland Empire, instead of Washington's IE.

I once had to google 'Inland Empire,' despite living in California for a year and making frequent visits for years afterward (although I never went to San Bernardino).

Washingtonian is perceived as that goofy, rainy, liberal state with Seattle and mountains.

But get east of the mountains, and you'll run into an Idaho state of mind long before you get to the Idaho border. No snow-covered mountains or lush forests. No open, friendly, liberal cities. Just scrub-desert and pursy-lipped right-wingers as far as the eye can see.

most productive wheat fields in the United States.

We actually grow more potatoes than Idaho. But I guess Idaho wanted to be known for something other than white supremacists...

As California heats up the NAPA growers are buying up property there like mad, so it's only going to get better. I have a son in the industry and he's delighted. But he's not planning on living in the IE.

A lot!...

the more rednekky bundy country it becomes.

so it was started before the 70's.

Obviously older than that

Yes, I know the Jesuits are a branch of the Catholic Church.

The Jesuits are like the progressive radical left-wing of the Catholic Church! Jesuits rock! Always on the cutting edge, pushing the envelope (often to the consternation of the pope!) Now the Catholic Church has a Jesuit pope! It's no surprise to me that it would take a Jesuit to drag the Church, albeit kicking and screaming, out of the Dark Ages and into the 21st Century.

I went there in the late 1960's before transferring out after 2 years to a bigger university with a more varied Fine Arts program. I had a blast, even while getting some serious core subject studying done as well. Of note, Gonzaga was already building a first-class basketball program even back then. Known for basketball, Engineering and Law. Fine art? Not so much. Leaving was painful, but necessary.

or did when I visited there many years ago.

Gonzaga is a small, private school in Spokane. Solid reputation academically. I have no idea how they became a powerhouse college team.

Washington is a blue state because the western half is where Seattle and the majority of the population is.

Spokane is on the east side on the Idaho border, 85% white, 17% poverty level, significant unemployment, and big into the NRA, guns, and deer hunting. Culturally very different. Seattle is known as "libtards" country. Its also where the fucking jobs are.

A little secret about the white working class. They'll complain until they get their 1980 factory or coal mining job back. Until then, they'll scapegoat, hate the government because their job left, while NOT going to school, and remain sitting on their fat asses shooting at gun ranges, drinking beer, shooting up meth, and complaining. That's my observation.

They expect the government to give them their old job back. Its 2017. How about learning computer skills besides video games?

Spokane is northwestern gateway to Trump country and it gets worse as you move eastward.

The Trumpanzees make me want to roll my eyes.

"Ah hates the gubmint! Cain't wait fer m'SSI check ta git here, so's Ah kin go down ta Hank's 'n' git drunk!"

...but other than that Wash state is home of Boeing, Microsoft, Macklamore, Jimmy Hindrix, Soundgaarden, Nirvana, Nintendo, Nordstroms, Costco, Bill and Melinda Gates.....Seahawks, Mariners and Zags!..oh! and Cougar Gold Cheese!!!! (Go Cougs!)

There are three Washingtons.

Western Washington - the Cascade Mountain Range to the coast - is where all the money, rain, fun stuff, jobs and liberals are.

Central Washington is tree fruit, row crops, potatoes and a degree of conservatism so severe Republicans run against Republicans in the general election. Its eastern edge is hard to pick out, but let's put it at 30 miles west of Spokane.

From there to the Idaho line is Eastern Washington. It's conservative - they inflicted Cathy McMorris Rogers on the rest of the country - but it's not nearly as bad as Grant County. It is the retail center for the American Redoubt.

many years, so I looked them up long ago when I was actually in an office pool. My son even considered going there at one point.

I just had to look up Gonzaga after I first noticed the team appearance in the NCAA tournament about eight years ago. What a nice-sounding name I thought.

I don't remember how far they got, but they got a LOT of air play at the time.

be in the Finals but I had never even heard of them.

They are in the same conference so they play each other regularly. Almost all of the schools in the WCC, their conference, are religiously affiliated schools.

LMU
Saint Mary's
Pepperdine
Santa Clara
BYU
Pacific
Portland
San Diego
San Francisco

All religious schools, mostly catholic.

Pepperdine is Church of Christ. My sister had to go to convocation regularly. We went to Catholic school from elementary through high school so it wasn't a huge deal, but they definitely try to sell it.

Santa Clara has a good law program. I have several friends who went to LMU. I was planning to attend but with my sister at PU, we did not have the money to send me to private. I ended up at UCLA. My cousin got her Masters from USD and a close friend got her undergrad at San Francisco.

All those on the list are great schools. Apologies to Stockton, but Pacific wouldn't have been high on my list. I have been through most of the schools on the list, all great locations. (Sorry again to Pacific, never had a reason to go through Stockton)

The list got me thinking, why is University of Seattle not on the list? Turns out they were original members but left for "greener" pastures.

It's a pretty well-regarded university.

...knew exactly where they were. A private college...small and relatively young. that's why this is a big deal for them.

the earliest known bootleg recording of Led Zeppelin (in the US) was done there in 1968. They opened for Vanilla Fudge at the Gonzaga gym. It was their fifth show in the US.


It is because of the Led Zep connection that I always picked them to go far in the NCAA tournament but they always burned me by losing way earlier than I had them going in my brackets. This year I dropped them out earlier than they went so I lost a lot of points. However I had NC picked as the winner so I won 2 of the 4 brackets I was in.

Went to a wedding in church there, its a catholic college i think.

She is still happy they made it as far as they did.

Gonzaga would never have been able to fill the streets the way Tar Heels did last night on Franklin Street to celebrate the win!


Some great photos/video here: http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/04/franklin-street-unc-fans

Never this far, that is for sure. Anyway, out here on the West Coast they are fairly well known.

Don't know why i thought that, just one of those guesstimates of where i thought they were...

Then one day was talking sports w/my dentist and he said they were in Washington State...

because their most famous athlete alum is John Stockton of Utah Jazz fame - if you followed the NBA any last decade.

And North Carolina won . . . . again . . . . so there is that.

Since the early 1990s, the same four teams (North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, UConn), with the occasional exception of a Villanova, Maryland, Kansas or Syracuse tossed in, win the championship almost every year like clockwork.

grafitti on some railroad bridge next to the 14th Street Bridge (the Rochambeau Bridge) into the District of Columbia from Arlington Virginia, and could be seen going into the District that read: Gonazaga beat -- and I no longer recall what school Gonzaga beat that inspired the grafitti.

The other school was St. John's.

the reference was to the University! Not sure if I'm happy to learn the truth, or a bit sorry to have my little bubble of ignorance burst.

But how cool is it that so quickly some knew exactly what I was talking about and could name the other school.

I actually do appreciate the correction.

Back then, it would have referred to a football rivalry. Today, Gonzaga is as likely to have rivalries in lacrosse and ice hockey, with, say, Georgetown Prep. They sponsor a big hockey tournament between semesters, the Purple Puck Tournament, at the Fort Dupont Ice Arena.*

Gonzaga has managed to cram a football/lacrosse field into an impossibly tiny space between the classroom building and the Government Printing Office on the north and south, and a parking lot and North Capitol Street on the west and east. There's also a Walmart and a Subway on that block.

Gonzaga College High School

* And now I know that the Latin phrase for hockey is "Ludus Glacialis." Not to nitpick, but wouldn't that apply just as well to any winter sport?

about those two schools, despite the years I lived in that area. I moved there as a young adult, moved away some 13 years later, so I didn't attend high school, nor did I have children in high school there.

I really do appreciate this stuff.

@capitalweather micro tornado at Gonzaga HIgh School tipped off roof.

Link to tweet

St. John’s dethrones Gonzaga to capture school’s first WCAC boys’ lacrosse title

By Eric Goldwein May 8 at 10:13 PM

As the other St. John’s players rushed toward the sideline, senior goalie John Kiracofe hung back by the center circle of the University of Maryland’s Ludwig Field. With eye black smeared across his face, he exchanged a lengthy hug with sophomore Alan Long and the two soaked in the historic victory.

With Monday’s 7-5 victory over Gonzaga, the Cadets captured their first Washington Catholic Athletic Conference championship since the school launched boys’ lacrosse in the late 1970s, according to school officials.

It was an upset on paper, but St. John’s (11-5) went into the season and the title game believing it could beat the seven-time defending WCAC champs.
....

No. 4 Gonzaga (14-7) won, 11-7, when the teams met April 28, and the Cadets used that game as motivation heading into the final in front of the packed stadium at College Park.
....

Those are the two schools in the graffito "Go Gonzaga Beat St. John's."

And he went to Gonzaga--otherwise

I'm not a basketball fan. The last time I actually attended a basketball game was at my high school in 1963. I had to, because I was in the pep band.

It's Gorgonzola.

It's named for St. Aloysius Gonzaga, a 16th-century Italian Jesuit, who died young as a result of caring for the victims of an epidemic.

Draw your own conclusions from that.

Beautiful campus.

But then I live in Washington State albeit on the wet side.

We were all really hoping for a championship for him.

Regular tournament contender.

Did you just hear of them? Jesuit school in Spokane.

so I looked.

I knew where it was

I find myself having to look up their location, such as Gonzaga, Duke, and Vanderbilt. I never had a strong interest in college sports, but thought it was interesting that there are schools that aren't named after cities or states.