We make fun of some universities for being basketball schools, but for the Jesuit Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., it’s very true. So much so that a national title Monday night against North Carolina would give the school a unique achievement.
NCAA championship: Gonzaga could be 1st non-football school to win since 1977
Who needs the gridiron when you can rule the hardwood?
Since Marquette won the national championship in 1977, no school that hasn’t had a football team has won a national title. In fact, only one such school has even made the title game.
But to be fair, this all depends on your definition of what a football team actually is.
Marquette shuttered football in 1960, but Gonzaga was way ahead of them, closing the doors on the program in 1941.
The program played for 76 years, but at the end money problems seem to have been to blame as a 1939 Spokane Daily Chronicle headline read “Financial problem may force Gonzaga University to drop collegiate football program.” Gate receipts were partly to blame. It was easy to put the program on hiatus once World War II started, and even easier not to bring it back, especially due to the fact that it struggled so much before the war started.
Famous alum and Utah Jazz legend John Stockton’s grandfather, Jack, was actually around to see them play, and the final game came in a 59-0 loss against Washington State on Nov. 22, 1941.
“I saw that game and that was the end of it. Everyone was gone to the war,” Jack Stockton said.
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