You might say Gonzaga athletic director Mike
Roth has tunnel vision.
Roth, co-architect of the team that is making its first Final Four appearance this weekend, is too nervous to watch the Bulldogs play from a seat. Years ago, he started standing in the tunnels leading into basketball arenas, where he could pace and mutter as the Bulldogs played.
“I get nervous energy around games,” Roth said this week. “It gives me the ability to work off that nervous energy.”
You can expect to find Roth standing in a tunnel when Gonzaga plays South Carolina on Saturday in Glendale, Ariz., with the winner advancing to the title game.
“Why mess with something that’s working?” Roth said.
You could say that about Roth’s entire 20-year tenure as athletic director.
While coach Mark Few and his players deservedly get the lion’s share of attention for the team’s success, Roth is the behind-the-scenes leader.
It was Roth who elevated Few to head coach in 1999. Roth also found the money to retain the coach when bigger programs came calling. It was Roth who marshalled the resources to build the McCarthey Athletic Center, a huge improvement over the old home court. He oversees the departments that ensure players remain eligible and graduate.
These days he is basking in the acclaim of the team’s first trip to the Final Four.
“People don’t realize how hard it is,” Roth said. “How crazy hard 19 straight NCAA Tournament appearances are.”
He noted that last year’s team that advanced to the Sweet 16 lost four starters, including two to the NBA. “Now we are in the Final Four,” Roth said.
Roth grew up in Moses Lake, a small town 90 miles west of Spokane, and played one year of JV basketball at Gonzaga in the early 1980s. He returned to the school as a low-level administrator a few years later, and was named athletic director in 1998.
“They haven’t been able to get rid of me since,” Roth joked.
Gonzaga is often criticized for playing in the relatively weak West Coast Conference, which consists mostly of small private schools. Saint Mary’s and BYU are the only league rivals who can consistently challenge the Zags.
Roth said the conference is a good fit in most respects. But Gonzaga remains open to changing conferences in the future, should there be an opportunity to improve the level of opponents, he said.
“I have no crystal ball on conference realignment,” Roth said.