Over the last 20 years, Georgetown has built a new student center, an Intercultural Center, and a dormitory. Over the next 10 years, the University wants to build a Performing Arts Center, a new facility for the McDonough School of Business and a new science building. What does this have to do with sports? Everything.
Georgetown University has not built any major athletic facilities since Yates Field House and Kehoe Field were finished in 1979, nor does it plan to build any soon. Since 1979, baseball has been evicted to Maryland, football to Harbin Field, track has never had a proper facility and McDonough Gymnasium awaits a long-overdue renovation or demolition. The University has no grand plan to improve this situation, save an agreement with Duke Ellington High School to use its track at 38th and R Streets., N.W.
A pair of decently convincing Big East wins has momentarily quieted the “Fire Esherick” uproar. The clamor may abate, at least until the Hoyas make an early exit from the Big East tournament in a few weeks, but the deeper issues which make scapegoats of Head Coach Craig Esherick and Director of Athletics Joe Lang remain.
The fact is, Georgetown University wants to become a different place. The Mission Statement itself states that Georgetown considers itself a top-flight research institution. As the construction priorities show, athletics, including basketball, do not fit neatly into those plans. Build some new chemistry labs, then we’ll talk basketball arenas.
This isn’t meant to absolve Esherick. Basketball analysts can come up with any number of reasons for the team’s recent mediocrity—lackluster recruiting, inferior off-season preparation, poor late-game decisions. Any or all of those things may be Esherick’s fault.
So where should athletics fit on the University’s list of priorities? Hoya Hoop Club members will have one answer, and the University administration, starting with the President and Board of Trustees, have an entirely different one. It’s hard to tell groups like Nomadic Theatre, who fight for what little performance space there is on campus, or science students and faculty, who have to work with facilities surpassed by newly built high schools, that basketball deserves a higher priority.
Or is it? One alumnus I’ve corresponded with via e-mail laments that Georgetown turned into a “poor Harvard” at the expense of a once-intense school spirit centered on hoops success. He’s got a point—plenty of Georgetown students (including every GUSA candidate who has run in the past three years) want increased student spirit. One time not too long ago, basketball did that. But today, the basketball team has settled into mediocrity, and the student body has become more and more apathetic.
Several universities manage to maintain consistently excellent athletic problems alongside top-notch academic programs. Duke, Stanford and Notre Dame are examples to be admired, but these universities have both well-developed graduate programs and even better developed endowments. Georgetown just isn’t in their league right now—quite simply, we’re going through some serious growing pains.
The great irony? Many have pointed out that the Hoyas’ 1980s hoops success raised our campus’ profile nationwide, increasing both reputation and applications. But look harder at when the building boom began—the nascent days of Hoya Paranoia. Basketball made Georgetown into a “poor Harvard,” and success could make it something greater. But as long as we have to make tough financial choices, it will be awfully hard.
