On the eve of the 25th anniversary of his ordainment and just days before his death, Father Vincent S. McDonough, S.J., had only one request for the school that he had served so dutifully.
“You give the boys a new gym and I’ll be happy,” he said.
As Georgetown’s Athletic Director from 1916 to 1928, McDonough earned a reputation for putting his athletes first. And although McDonough Gymnasium wasn’t dedicated until decades later, the dying wish of Father “Mac” ushered in a new era of Georgetown basketball.
The Hoyas would eventually move their home court to the Capital Centre a few years prior to the Ewing-led championship team before settling into what is now the Verizon Center in 1997. However, the gym has maintained its role in the program, both as the principal practice facility and the host venue for one or two Georgetown games a season. But in this year’s schedule-which features a gauntlet-throwing trip to Duke, a visit from a national runner-up, and one of the most grueling conference slates of all time-the annual on-campus game at McDonough is notably absent.
“The lack of a McDonough game this year is a serious loss for the Georgetown basketball community,” Hoya Blue vice-president Nick Sementelli (SFS `09) said. “Here on campus, filled almost completely with students who are right on top of the court, the game really embodies what it means to have a home court advantage.”
The Hoyas, fueled by that home court advantage, blew up for 110 points against Radford in their only game at McDonough last year. That’s not to say that all McDonough memories are good ones-the year before, the team suffered a shocking early-season loss to Old Dominion-but the intimacy afforded by a small arena is what makes places like Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium and Rutgers’ RAC such formidable venues. Current Georgetown students really don’t have much to complain about in terms of Hoya basketball, but the fact of the matter is that they are missing out on an important aspect of college hoops. And don’t think that the absence of a McDonough game is lost on the players.
“I love to play games here,” senior guard Jessie Sapp said during Media Day at the gym. “We usually play a game here, but there’s not one this year, and I’m kinda sad about it. I talked to Coach [Thompson] and he just said, ‘Don’t worry about it.'”
Of course, it would be ridiculous to say that the team is better off playing its games in McDonough than at Verizon. A sell-out crowd of just over 2,500 witnessed the Radford drubbing last season, compared to the 20,000 that showed up at the Verizon Center to see Georgetown clinch the Big East against Louisville. With numbers like those, it’s clear that the Hoyas are right where they belong in the NBA-size arena. But students should be given at least one chance a year to experience a venue that is truly their own.
“The McDonough game was always emblematic of a distant hope for an on-campus arena at some point in the future,” Sementelli said. “Though our class will never see it, McDonough approximates what that atmosphere would feel like.”
While this year’s schedule is daunting, there are still enough pre-conference cupcakes-Jacksonville, Savannah State, Mount St. Mary’s-to feature a game at McDonough. The team’s performance in this year’s early-season baptism-by-fire will have a great effect on how next year is scheduled. But regardless, there should never be another season without a game in Father Mac’s House.
