Mark Few was a couple of weeks into his seasonal job with USA Basketball last summer when he started to notice some unusual elbow soreness. The longtime Gonzaga coach mentioned it in passing while conversing with a couple of his high-profile colleagues — Miami Heat’s Erik Spoelstra and Los Angeles’ Clippers Tyronn Lue. It turned out Few wasn’t alone.
Coming off his 25th season at Gonzaga, Few hasn’t known life as a full-time assistant coach since his final year on Dan Monson’s staff at Gonzaga in 1999. He quickly became reacquainted last summer while serving under the Golden State Warriors’ Steve Kerr during Team USA’s stay at the FIBA World Cup. Though it comes with decidedly less pressure than the job he has had in Spokane for more than two decades, Few has learned it can be more demanding in other ways.
“We don’t have a bunch of grad aids, so we end up working the dudes out after the game,” Few said. “I remember last year like two or three weeks in, we were all like, came into one of the meetings and we were all like, ‘God, does your elbow hurt? Mine’s killing me.’ It’s just from doing all of this (passing motion).
I don’t do that here. Sit here and rep out passes to our guys, chase down rebounds or whatever. It’s been interesting.
“I didn’t need to go back to appreciate all the assistants do (at Gonzaga), but it was a great reminder of what you end up doing all the time.” Before returning to what many observers project will be a t.
