First, let’s offer our kudos to the Maryland Terrapins on their first national championship.
Congratulations, you earned it. Hope you enjoyed your riots. They looked fun.
Now that that’s out of the way, it’s time for Georgetown University to start planning for some riots of our own, or rather, our second NCAA men’s basketball championship. If you’ve read the cover story, it should be clear enough to you that something is wrong with our team. We’ve got the talent. We’ve got the recruiting. We’ve got the coaching … Well, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt: Yes, we’ve got the coaching. So what’s missing?
It appears after some deductive reasoning that it must be some sort of intangible. After considering many such factors (e.g. Big East schedule, Esherick’s moustache, curse of John Thompson’s ex-wife), I’ve decided it must be the atmosphere. After all, a university with requirements as inane as Euro Civ to Problem of God doesn’t exactly seem to encourage seeking greater glories on the basketball court.
There is a solution that will vault the Hoyas back into those halcyon, “paranoia” days of yore: Establish, in short order, the John Thompson School of Professional Basketball at Georgetown University.
As the foremost school for the development of tomorrow’s basketball professional, the Thompson School (SPB) will be at the vanguard of a diverse and changing global basketball environment.
The coursework will be suitably diverse. Of course, the core will remain: Introduction to Man-to-Man Defense, Media Relations, Endorsement Contracts and Drug Test Management, to name a few, but the electives, with the assistance of some luminous adjunct faculty, will hone students in the cutting edge of modern hoops. Just think: Phil Jackson on Introduction to Eastern Religion, Latrell Sprewell on Rudimentary Cornrow Maintenance, Shaquille O’Neal’s upper-level free throw seminar.
And think of the extracurricular opportunities! An extensive alumni base will allows young SPBers to intern in such illustrious positions as Pat Ewing’s golf caddy, Alonzo Mourning’s knee-brace changer and a member of Allen Iverson’s “crew.” This is not to mention the exclusive SPB career fairs. While everyone else gets Dean Witter and Goldman Sachs, SPB students will compete for the affections of the Knicks, the Wizards and the Denver Nuggets. Of course, there will also be study-abroad opportunities: shadow Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje around Oregon (it might as well be a foreign country), and see the sights … Ooh la la!
Those of you who might retch at the horror of such a crass and worldly pursuit be damned. After all, Georgetown has a sizable reputation for its “real world,” pre-professional focus. Wanna be a Hill staffer? College government major?done. I-banker? MSB Finance major?done. State department? SFS I-pol?done. Nurse? You can do that, too! Forget this liberal arts window dressing. A lot of people come to Georgetown knowing very well what they want to do, and quite often they leave doing just that.
And you know what, there’s a group of kids who come to Georgetown to play basketball, and by gum, they should leave with a piece of paper that says they know how to do just that, not to mention having several national championship trophies to boot.
The most important part: The SPB would feature only a two-year program. That’s right. You can’t stay for four years even if you wanted to! In fact, if you aren’t a lottery pick by the end of your sophomore year, you either flunk out or transfer to MSB. It’s that simple.
Now, some might protest: But the NCAA only allows teams from schools with accredited four-year programs! Coach Esherick, possessing as he does the degree of juris doctor from the renowned Georgetown Law Center, should be more than able to finagle a way out of that situation. (For all you Esherick-haters out there, there’s reason number one to let the guy stick around.)
If Sweetney’s really staying around for four years, let’s make it worth his while. Let’s start next year, and make Mike Sweetney (CAS ‘04) into Mike Sweetney (SPB ‘04).
So what do we have to lose? Well, there’s that reputation thing. Of course, Georgetown’s national reputation increased by orders of magnitude in those heady days of “Hoya Paranoia.” So, please, we’d lose more reputation in the repeated post-championship rioting. And I say it’s a price worth paying.
