Mark Few is fine outside the spotlight

— -- SPOKANE, Wash. -- It's clear he's a winner, although he's stoic in a room that's crowded with the 15 West Coast Conference regular-season championship trophies he's earned.

The scattered jewelry boxes on a shelf behind him; rings come with those WCC titles. The plaques. An office the size of a comfortable West Coast condo. They're all proof of his prosperity.

Gonzaga is 26-1 overall and 14-0 in the West Coast Conference. Coach Mark Few has led the program to the Sweet 16 four times, but the Zags haven't surpassed their 1999 Elite Eight run. They've been the preeminent mid-major for nearly 20 years. But other non-Power 5 schools such as Wichita State, VCU, George Mason and Butler have all reached the Final Four while Gonzaga still hopes for another deep run in the Big Dance. In 2013, Gonzaga secured a No. 1 seed but suffered a loss to Wichita State in the second round. North Carolina topped Gonzaga on its way to the 2009 national title. The program has been perceived by many as a quality unit that has struggled to justify the hype when the games count most in the postseason.

"We're in the middle of February, and two of the last three years, we've been in the running for a No. 1 seed," Few said. "What job is better than that? You want to win, and we've been able to win. Winning is fun."

But he would rather not discuss his legacy.

Talk to Gary Bell Jr., he says. That's a better story.

The exploits of a man with the highest winning percentage (81 percent) among active Division I coaches? Nothing to see here.

Few doesn't just flee attention. He puts on a fake mustache, sunglasses and a trench coat, and then he skips town until it passes. It's easier to avoid that spotlight in this nugget of a city stuffed into the mountains of eastern Washington than it is in Los Angeles or Seattle. And that's ideal for Few, who guides one of two top-10 teams that hail from non-Power 5 leagues.

"We do his radio show in his office," said Mike Roth, the school's athletic director. "Most places in the top 20, they're doing their radio show downtown someplace, get the crowd to come in. That's not Mark's style. Mark doesn't like that. He doesn't want that. ... He can be really good with the public. But why put him there if he doesn't want to be there, if we don't have to be there. So we're careful with that."

He's not always reserved.

He'll gush about that photo on his office wall that shows him holding a salmon the length of a Louisville Slugger. He fell in love with fly-fishing years ago. It's a method of fishing that entails the use of a heavier line and a lightweight, artificial "fly" that resembles a bug or insect and sits just below the surface to lure salmon, trout, bass and other fish.

As Few tells the story of this memorable catch, he's back in Alaska wrestling with the monster in the photo during one of his annual fly-fishing trips to The Last Frontier. He raced 300 yards to snag him. Took 30 minutes to grab the sucker.

"I was running," Few said. "You're running on the side of the river. I'm not gonna lie to you: I tripped and went down a couple times, kept the rod up. You turn into kind of a stumbling, bumbling idiot when you're chasing a big fish like that. It doesn't always go perfect. It's like a basketball game. It's not always as planned."

He's sculpted his career on the principles that all coaches preach but few achieve. He chases balance. He needs it. And popularity often complicates that pursuit.

So he turns to the fishing rod, even midseason when necessary. He's usually alone or with a close friend. But brief fly-fishing excursions provide relief and reflection. The hobby helps him keep it all together.

He's aware power coaches' lucrative salaries come with clauses their contracts never mention. Coaching sometimes swallows marriages. It can turn husbands into houseguests. Fathers become strangers. Some coaches meet their families only after they've retired.

"Mark has an amazing ability to have balance and peace in his life that I think very few guys in this profession have," said Bill Grier, San Diego's coach and a former Gonzaga assistant. "I think [fly-fishing] is a therapeutic thing for him."

So Few's championships matter. And he wants more of them, just not as much as he desires the peace of mind he enjoys. That's his greatest accomplishment. It's not easy to maintain, even in a city of 210,000 positioned just 20 miles from the Idaho border. Gonzaga is still the biggest show in the region, the best team on the West Coast.

He's still running a top-10 program that's recruited some of the top players in America -- and the world -- for more than a decade. He's still facing the pressure of reaching the Final Four for the first time in school history. He's still dealing with the media requests and the daily grind of the coaching profession. He's still focused on his marriage and fatherhood.

Fly-fishing, believe it or not, helps Few find harmony within the hustle.

"It just brings it down," Few said. "I walk out the next day at practice in a much better place. Even come home in a much better place. My wife will tell you, [I'm] a much better parent, a much better husband. Everything. These seasons and the job can become all-encompassing sometimes. And so it's good. It's a great time to think and think about your team and plan and do things in that area because you have a lot of time just standing there in the river. I think [fly-fishing] is probably the biggest thing that I've always tried to do."