Every Saturday morning I am startled awake at the crack of noon by athletic girls from Visitation Preparatory School obnoxiously exercising their supposed right to hoot and holler in adrenaline-induced excitement. These hooligans are disturbing the quality of life for Georgetown students in general and most especially for residents of the Henle community, where students are consistently subjected to noise levels above the acceptable level. I can point to at least one instance when these kids insisted on having some sort of a school rally beneath my window. I knew the field was there when I chose to move into Henle, but I never expected the noise levels to be so outrageous. I am only one woman, but I feel I speak for many Georgetown students when I say I have been experiencing “mental and physical distress” from the early morning noise levels on the Visitation field.
There could be a solution to this problem if only Visitation Prep would cooperate with the Georgetown community. I have compiled some reasonable demands that would mitigate this problem in a way that respects the rights of Georgetown students to live in peace and quiet: Visitation Prep should release private information of students who play on sports teams, and the school should staff a 24-hour telephone hotline to receive complaints. They should maintain records of athlete misconduct and provide quarterly summaries to several University boards and student associations. These demands in no way conflict with the privacy of student-athletes, and anyway, if they started acting their age, maybe I would want to treat them with more respect. Why all the screaming and yelling anyway? It is just game.
Georgetown is a premier educational institution where thousands of students study, live and work. Everyone knows that college students function best at night, and it is only reasonable that we not be subjected to unacceptable noise levels in the early-morning hours when our brains are busy processing all the data and wisdom we acquired the previous day. A little noise is OK, but the hooting and chanting is just plain wrong, legally and morally. Can’t these students just play the game and stop yelling happily about it?
Visitation Prep would like to expand its facilities in order to better serve its student body, and I contend that it not be allowed to make any improvements to its institution without first getting approval from an offshoot of GUSA, tentatively named BZA, Banishing Zealous Athletes. BZA is a fair and unbiased organization made up entirely of Georgetown students which will evaluate whether or not Visitation has the right to make any 5- or 10-Year Plans for expansion. BZA has issued a tentative cap on the number of Visitation students that can enroll on the sports teams. This cap will stay in place until the school finds a way to better control the behavior of its students in such a way that the University and the community can live in peace, love and harmony.
I may not be a student at Visitation, but that does not mean I am not in a position to judge them or to impose my will upon their institution, its students and all future plans for expansion. It is a simple fact of life that in the “real world,” nobody likes it when you yell and scream loudly in the morning. As soon as these teenagers start acting like proper adults, this community will be a much happier place. Albeit, many of us at Georgetown liked to play sports and to cheer on our teammates when we were in our prime, but we are past that point in our life now; Visitation Prep kids should realize that and stop annoying us with their youth.
I am old, tired and mean, and I don’t want to hear all the sounds of fun and youth streaming in my window every morning. Since I can’t have fun on the field anymore because I have too many responsibilities, I want to make sure I don’t have to listen to the evidence that such fun still exists. Georgetown University is tired of putting up with loud noise from Visitation Preparatory School. We are putting our foot down. Be quiet please. We are trying to learn.
