Dave Boling: A little reminder as Gonzaga basketball heads to the Bahamas – former guard Quentin Hall can still sizzle

As the story goes, the temperature that day was 95 degrees with 90% humidity – so hot that the outdoor, blacktop court on Grand Bahama Island radiated heat waves as if it were a mirage.

A young assistant coach from the United States sat on the steaming sidelines, dressed professionally – blazer, long-sleeved shirt, tie. Everything in order, except for being almost comically drenched in perspiration.

The undersized point-guard prospect that the coach was there to recruit, Quentin Hall, was doing what he always did, playing with combative intensity and a predatory feline quickness.

How intense? Hall would dive to possess any loose ball. Face first, onto the sizzling asphalt court. That pretty much answered any possible questions a coach might have regarding a player’s toughness.

While that is unquestionable upper-level effort, it was matched, in his own way, by the coach from the dank Pacific Northwest, who was as long on determination as he was short on melanin.

Risking severe dehydration and second-degree sunburn, the fair-skinned coach was hoping to sell this kid on the idea of coming to play basketball in Spokane, Wash., which, via air miles, is closer to Nome, Alaska, than it is to the Bahamas.

It was the sort of brazen long shot that characterized the young Gonzaga assistant, who was earning a reputation as a recruiter who would turn over every stone to unearth prospects that could upgrade talent for the Zags.

This young Bahamian guard turned out to be a gem who would play a key role in establishing the foundation for the basketball phenomenon that GU would become. And the young coach, Mark Few, would become the winningest active coach (by percentage) in college basketball.

Few, in his 26th season as Gonzaga’s head coach, returns to the Bahamas this week to compete in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament on Paradise Island (just off Nassau, New Providence Island), roughly 130 air miles from Hall’s home in Freeport.

Hall said by phone last week that he wasn’t sure if he could get over to the tournament. It’s a half-hour flight. But he is still emotionally drained, as his 92-year-old father recently died and was buried last week.

“I’m gonna try to get there,” Hall said. “I probably will make it.”

Hall, 47, teaches and coaches (basketball and track) at a junior high school. “I have three championships in a row, the best junior school for track and field in Grand Bahama. Who would ever imagine?”

Well, anyone who ever watched him compete could imagine Hall accomplishing anything he set his mind to.

Few later said that his trip to Freeport felt like he was playing Kevin Bacon’s role in the movie “The Air Up There,” in which a college basketball coach travels to Kenya searching for potential talent but gets caught up in cross-cultural hijinks.

Hall laughed when reminded of Few’s appearance that day. “He was sweating his bullets off.”

The biggest thing: “He was there. He met my parents and he was a really nice man, and he was authentic from that day on.”

To meet academic qualifications, Hall had to go through Yakima Valley College (coached by future Zags assistant Leon Rice) before joining GU as a junior in the 1997-98 season.

As a senior, Hall was point guard and the competitive pulse of a highly talented/lightly regarded historic Zags team.

In two NCAA Tournament games, particularly, Hall’s defensive aggressiveness played a key role, as he held Minnesota’s leading scorer Quincy Lewis and Connecticut’s All-American point guard Khalil El-Amin to combined 3-for-31 shooting.

Legendary stuff.

Hall played professionally for several years in Europe and returned home to teach and raise his family (three sons – Quacius is 15, Qamani is 13 and Qeiran is 10) with wife Vanessa.

Of course, he follows the Zags, and thinks “this is the team” to win their first national championship.

“I don’t want to put the pressure on them, but I’m telling you, I’ve got that feeling.”

Differences between modern Zags teams and his vintage? “They’re ranked in the top five, that’s the big difference,” he said. “They KNOW they’re good. We believed we were good, but nobody else knew it.”

When asked what he tries to teach his young athletes, Hall captured the essence of being part of a team, the kind of thing that made him such a great player and beloved teammate.

“I try to teach the kids that it’s a brotherhood, a friendship, something that lasts forever,” he said. “I try to impress on them that you play for one another. That’s bigger than winning at this level, and once you can do that, you can adapt to anything in sports, to different people, cultures, environments, anything.”

He laughed when asked if he could imagine the sweaty young coach who recruited him being on his way to the hall of fame, and being on the Olympic gold-medal-winning USA staff.

“I’m telling you, Coach Few is still the same to me,” he said. “The way he talks and moves, all still the same. Whenever I speak to him, he’s always the same individual. He always knew what he wanted and knew what he was. I can relate because I am who I am and I’m not afraid to say it, whether anybody likes it or not.”

Hall said his family is back on its feet after having to repair the damage caused by the historically destructive Hurricane Dorian in 2019.

Aside from teaching and coaching, he enjoys playing golf, but his focus remains on his family.

How does a man with a legendary competitive spirit deal with the reduced number of outlets in middle age?

“You know, I look at my little boys, and how I deal with them and try to be as patient as I can on a daily basis. It’s focusing on them and channeling all that toward them right now, and that gives me a peace of mind more than anything.”

He hopes that his boys grow up to have some of the opportunities he had.

Will they be taller than dad?

Huge laugh.

“They already are,” he said. “Of course, you know, that doesn’t take much.”