For some Georgetown students, four years on the Hilltop turns them into rabid Hoya fans, a sports obsession that doesn’t die at graduation. For others school pride may wane, but they would like to reminisce fondly with their fellow alumni, perhaps over a few drinks. This weekend these two groups converge for a Homecoming celebration.
The official Homecoming schedule lists over seventy events, including a Brazilian Literary Conference and the Protestant Ministry Ice Cream Social. But it doesn’t take a long look to see what Homecoming is really about: sports and booze.
The event that is at the heart of the weekend—that is, the one they can make you pay for—is the homecoming tailgate party. Ostensibly a prelude to the football game, the tailgate takes over McDonough Parking Lot with a bacchanalia of food, beverage, and music courtesy of “the East Coast’s premiere ‘80s tribute band.”
As if the best Duran Duran covers east of the Mississippi weren’t enticing enough, there’s also unlimited beer. And just because it’s eleven in the morning doesn’t mean that the wristbanded masses won’t swarm the Bud Light trucks like fat kids on cake.
Somewhat surprisingly, many fans do make it to the football game. Perhaps the influence of alcohol should be taken into consideration when counting attendance figures, but as it stands, the Homecoming game traditionally draws the most fans all year.
This year the team will hopefully give the revelers a more palatable result, after falling 24-7 to Penn last season. Georgetown’s schedule-makers seem to have learned their lesson, replacing the Quakers, undefeated all-time in six games against the Hoyas, with local opponent Howard.
Howard might be the best bet on Georgetown’s schedule for sending the alumni home happy. The Bisons have not won a game this year—of course, neither have the Hoyas—but they were one of only two teams Georgetown was able to defeat last season.
The game is billed as the second annual battle for the D.C. Cup, but it’s hard to manufacture a rivalry between two schools that didn’t play one another for over 100 years. The real gridiron grudge match goes down later that afternoon, when the College Democrats take on the College Republicans in a flag football game on Copley Lawn.
Still, any sports fan would be remiss to limit their Homecoming experience to pigskin. Believe it or not, this weekend doesn’t just offer athletic competitions between winless teams and collegiate political organizations. Georgetown’s soccer teams play three games throughout the Homecoming festivities, with the men and women playing a doubleheader against Rutgers on Friday, and the men facing Big East foe Villanova on Sunday. There may not be beer trucks tacitly bribing you to watch their games, but there’s no need for intoxicating enticement with the quality of the soccer teams.
However, even the athletic department itself can’t stay away from the booze during Homecoming, holding a Friday night open bar benefit at Rhino’s. Former athletes and current officials will step behind the bar to serve drinks and loosen donors’ purse strings. Among the guest bartenders is baseball head coach Pete Wilk, who will valiantly face drunken boosters who recently learned their athletic program was placed on probation due to violations by the baseball team.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how much money the University can elicit from drunken alumni, or even if Georgetown’s teams win this weekend. Homecoming is about bringing past and present Hoyas together to celebrate the University. And it will, with alumni from as far back as the class of 1967 registered to attend the same events as the class of 2013. Never mind the generation gap; it seems all Hoyas have at least two things in common—booze and sports.
