99-year-old Gonzaga fan gearing up for Final Four

RENTON, Wash. -- Verna Nelson, 99, was blessed with a family of girls. She has one daughter, one granddaughter and one great-granddaughter.

Gonzaga’s men’s basketball team, she says, are her boys.

Gonzaga is Final Four bound for the first time in the school’s history. Gonzaga will play South Carolina on Saturday to earn a berth in the national championship game.

Meanwhile, 99-year-old Verna Nelson is on the edge of her seat.

“Oh man I’m sitting there, jiggling and talking, yay yay yay, you know, go Gonzaga!” she said.

Nelson showed off her Gonzaga sweatshirt, socks and signage Thursday. She’s as big a Bulldogs fan as you’ll find. She watches every game, opting to skip some dinners to stay glued to the TV.

Every game comes with a stiff drink, and usually a visit from family. Her daughter, Karyn, watches most of the games with her.

“And you do not get between her and the TV set during a game,” Karyn Hough laughed.

Nelson lived in Spokane, the home of Gonzaga, for almost 80 years. She moved to Renton in 2014, where she lives in a retirement community. She doesn’t know how this love affair began.

“Well I often wonder that myself. I can’t remember how I got started,” she said. She doesn’t know when it happened either. She just likes those student-athletes.

“They seem always like a nice clean bunch of guys,” she said. “I don’t know what it is that makes me feel that way, but I like them all!”

Either way, those players have become more than apartment décor. They’re a key, Nelson says, to her healthy life.

“It makes me happy, yeah,” she said. “It’s something to look forward to.”

So she’ll cherish Saturday, and Monday’s championship if the Zags make it. It’s a chance to gather with her girls and watch her boys make history.