Dan Monson

Dan Monson
Sport(s)	Basketball
Current position
Title	Head coach
Team	Long Beach State
Record	60-66
Biographical details
Born	October 6, 1961 (1961-10-06) Spokane, Washington, USA
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1986–1988 1988–1997 1997–1999 1999–2006 2007–present	UAB (asst.) Gonzaga (asst.) Gonzaga Minnesota Long Beach State
Head coaching record
Overall	230-189 (.549)
Accomplishments and honors
Championships WCC Tournament Championship (1999) WCC Regular Season Championship (1998, 1999) BWC Regular Season Championship (2011)

Daniel Lloyd (Dan) Monson (born October 6, 1961 in Spokane, Washington) is an American college basketball coach. He was hired as the head coach of the Long Beach State 49ers on April 7, 2007. Previously he was head coach at the University of Minnesota for over seven seasons, from July 24, 1999, to November 30, 2006. Before coaching the Gophers, he was the head coach at Gonzaga for two seasons, where he had spent the previous nine seasons as an assistant coach.

Early years

Dan Monson is the son of college basketball coach Don Monson, and spent most of his early years in eastern Washington, where his father was a successful high school head coach in Cheney and Pasco for 18 seasons. At age 14, the family moved from Pasco to East Lansing, Michigan, where Don was an assistant coach for Jud Heathcote at Michigan State for two seasons.

They moved to Moscow, Idaho, at the start of his junior year, when his father became the head coach of his alma mater, the University of Idaho, in August 1978. Dan graduated from Moscow High School in 1980 and played college football a few blocks away as a receiver for the Idaho Vandals, then under head coach Jerry Davitch. Monson suffered a knee injury that ended his playing career, and focused on coaching; he graduated from Idaho with a degree in secondary education (mathematics) in 1985.

Coaching career

After graduation from college, Dan Monson was a high school coach in Oregon City, Oregon for a season, then became a collegiate graduate assistant under Gene Bartow at UAB in 1986, where he earned a master's degree in education.

In 1988, after two seasons in Birmingham, he was hired by Head Coach Dan Fitzgerald as an assistant coach at Gonzaga back in Spokane. In 1994, Monson was promoted to associate head coach, and became Gonzaga's head coach upon the retirement of Fitzgerald in March 1997, at the age of 55. While at the helm at Gonzaga, the Bulldogs compiled a 52-17 (.754) record. The 1999 team brought Gonzaga basketball to national prominence with an impressive run in NCAA tournament. In the West regional, the 10th seeded "Zags" defeated 7th-seed Minnesota and 2nd-seed Stanford in the Seattle sub-regional, and 6th-seed Florida in the Sweet Sixteen round in Phoenix. Gonzaga advanced to the regional final (Elite Eight), taking the region's top seed, and eventual national champion, Connecticut down to the last minute, losing by five points.

Dan Monson became one of the more sought after coaching candidates in college basketball in the spring of 1999. After Gonzaga's improbable run to the Elite Eight, he was offered the head coaching position at the University of Minnesota, which he accepted. Mark Yudof, then president of the University, was hoping that Monson would be able to help the program move past the scandals of previous head coach Clem Haskins. In the previous season, Gonzaga had defeated Minnesota in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Assistant coach Mark Few succeeded Monson at Gonzaga. Interestingly, Monson also had ties to Minnesota already, as his father Don was born in rural Menahga, Minnesota.

In April 2002, Monson was courted by the University of Washington to run the Washington Huskies men's team and return to his home state of Washington. Monson initially accepted the offer presented by Huskies AD Barbara Hedges. The Minnesota athletic department under Tom Moe convinced Monson to change his mind and stay on with Minnesota. In the end, Monson decided to return to Minnesota because he didn't feel he had given enough time to the rebuilding effort at Minnesota and hadn't yet attained enough success with the team.

Dealing with the fallout from the academic scandals of the Clem Haskins era, it was several years before Monson was able to recruit on equal footing with other Big Ten coaches. He led the Gophers to one NCAA Tournament and 4 NIT appearances in his 7 full-seasons as Gophers coach. On November 30, 2006, Dan Monson resigned as head coach of Minnesota after a 2-5 start and only achieving a single 20-win season in 7. Assistant coach Jim Molinari was appointed interim head coach before Tubby Smith was named the new head coach after the season.

Monson compiled a 118-106 (.527) record with the Gophers, giving him an overall career record of 170-123 (.580) as a head coach. On April 6, 2007 Monson was named the head coach of the men's basketball team at Long Beach State. Under Monson's guidance, Long Beach State has improved each season, to the point that on February 24, 2011 Long Beach defeated Cal Poly 61-55 to clinch their first Big West regular season title since 2006-07 and the #1 seed in the Big West Tournament. They won their last nine regular season games heading into the tournament.

Monson has also coached internationally; he was an assistant coach on the 1999 World University Games team and the 2004 USA U-20 team.

Head coaching record

Season	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Postseason
Gonzaga (West Coast Conference) (1997–1999)
1997–1998	Gonzaga	24-10	10-4	1st	NIT Second Round
1998–1999	Gonzaga	28-7	12-2	1st	NCAA Elite Eight
Gonzaga:		52-17	22-6
Minnesota (Big Ten Conference) (1999–2006)
1999–2000	Minnesota	12-16	4-12	10th
2000–2001	Minnesota	18-14	5-11	9th	NIT Second Round
2001–2002	Minnesota	18-13	9-7	6th	NIT Second Round
2002–2003	Minnesota	19-14	8-8	T-6th	NIT Semifinals
2003–2004	Minnesota	12-18	3-13	T-10th
2004–2005	Minnesota	21-11	10-6	T-4th	NCAA First Round
2005–2006	Minnesota	16-15	5-11	10th	NIT Second Round
2006–2007	Minnesota	2-5	0-0	N/A
Minnesota:		118-106	44-68
Long Beach State (Big West Conference) (2007–present)
2007–2008	Long Beach State	6-25	3-13	8th
2008–2009	Long Beach State	15-15	10-6	2nd
2009–2010	Long Beach State	17-16	8-8	3rd
2010-2011	Long Beach State	22-12	14-2	1st	NIT First Round
2011-2012	Long Beach State	-	-
Long Beach State:		60-68	35-29
Total:		230-191
National champion         Conference regular season champion         Conference tournament champion       Conference regular season and conference tournament champion       Conference division champion

External links

• Gonzaga Bulldogs - official site
• Univ. of Minnesota Gophers Sports.com - official site - Dan Monson's bio
• USA Basketball.com - Dan Monson - bio
• The Seattle Times - For Monson, no curing the bug to coach again - 08-Feb-2007