Marilyn McMorrow says she “doesn’t have an athletic bone in her body,” but describes watching the Georgetown basketball team as “ecstasy … you can be lifted out of your shoes.
“When I’m watching them really working together as a team, I completely forget everything else,” she said. “I’m just totally involved in them. I love that feeling of watching them work together.”
McMorrow, a Catholic nun, Government professor and season-ticket holder, is just one of the many Georgetown faculty members that spend time cheering for their team both in the stands and the classroom.
McMorrow said she began going to occasional games after joining the Georgetown faculty in 1992. She remembered being awestruck by Allen Iverson, whom she described as “a beautiful dancer,” and began to attend games more regularly despite the limited budget of a nun.
“It was more, ‘Since I am a nun, was it okay to use my money that way?’ And I like to tease that I gradually went down the slippery slope.”
Government professor Christopher Joyner spends much of his time cheering on the women’s team.
“After teaching one summer, a female basketball player invited me to come out and watch her play … I decided that I would go out and take a look,” he said. “The women practice as hard as the men, are really good, and unfortunately they don’t get the same sort of respect that the men do, they don’t have the fan support. And so I’ve made it sort of an ambition to give to these sports teams a couple hours a week as a fan.”
Joyner brings his love of the sport into the classroom, often talking up the teams before class and offering extra points on exams to students who go to the games.
“What I want them to do is go out and see their classmates and how talented they are at playing these sports, and that should give them more pride in the school and more respect in their classmates,” he said.
Hoya Paranoia among university employees isn’t limited to faculty. Coral Harris (COL ‘80), a senior human resources official, has built up a collection of Georgetown basketball memorabilia over the years, including old program books and mugs signed by team members.
“It’s a family thing,” Harris said about basketball’s effect on the campus. “That’s when everybody gets to be the same, because we’re all coming together for a great cause.”
This season will be bittersweet for McMorrow because it means saying goodbye to her favorite player, Jonathan Wallace.
“I always have one player that my heart goes out to particularly and I love it when you can see then from their first year to their senior year,” she said. “Whenever something has to happen, I know he will do something to turn it around.”
—Additional reporting by Crystal Chung and Elena Solli
