“My geekiness is getting in the way of my nerdiness,” the comedian-philosopher Patton Oswalt once said. Standing sleeveless in the upper student section last Saturday with a sixteen ounce sports beverage in hand, I came to a similar conclusion about two things that I cherish dearly: sports and politics. Maybe it was the fact that Obama was in attendance, or maybe it was the aforementioned sports beverage, but I started thinking that the Georgetown basketball team bears an eerie resemblance to the cast of characters currently dominating American politics.
Let’s start at the top. Greg Monroe is Barack Obama. He’s a bit young for a position of such great responsibility, perhaps, but he’s cool and calm—the cerebral leader. I’m hoping that both will remain in D.C. for the next few years.
Going down the chain of command, Chris Wright is Joe Biden. Does he have a vast skill set? Yes. Does he know how to run the court, both by the regulations of the NCAA and the operating procedures of the U.S. Senate? Certainly. Can he get a little carried away in his own brilliance? Sometimes. Wright is perhaps the best pure athlete on the Hoyas this year, but his propensity for jacking up the ball in traffic and trying too hard to make the highlight reel can cost him. Biden is known as one of the best pure debaters in the Senate, but he also has a tendency for making gaffes, like when he asked wheelchair-bound Senator Chuck Graham (D-Missouri) to stand up and let the crowd see him.
For Austin Freeman we’re going to have to reach back in time a little bit, because he is Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts). When he was younger, Kennedy struggled with teasing about his weight from his svelte older brothers. Could the same sort of relationship have existed between a sophomore Freeman and his older teammates? In the Senate, Teddy took a few years before he hit his stride and became known for such gut-busting bills as the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993 and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Sound anything like Freeman’s 28 second-half points against UConn? I rest my case.
Now things get confusing, because the next three Hoyas come from the other party. For starters, Jason Clark is a defensive mastermind in the mold of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky). Like Clark, McConnell is among the best at stymieing the opposition. Whether intercepting a pass or picking off pork-barrel spending, both play great defense.
Julian Vaughn came out of nowhere this year to become a valuable supporting player with good numbers in rebounds and blocks, as did political unknown (and former nude model) Scott Brown. Brown’s performance in the Massachusetts special election on Jan. 19 broke the Democrats’ filibuster-proof super-majority, just one day before Vaughn dropped 11 points to end Pitt’s 31-game at-home winning streak. No word yet on how JuJu’s nascent modeling career will shape up.
Rounding out the Hoya’s Senate cast, Hollis Thompson is Louisiana wunderkind-turned political pariah Bobby Jindal. Thompson came to the Hoyas as one of the top-ranked forwards in the country, much the way Jindal came to national prominence for his handling of Hurricane Gustav. However, both floundered on the big stage, Thompson with performances like his 0-7 effort in Georgetown’s January 17 loss at Villanova, Jindal with his response to Obama’s first State of the Union. We can only hope that Thompson masters the jump shot before Jindal learns to speak like a normal person.
Whomever the Georgetown basketball players bear resemblance to, lets just hope this years crop of Hoyas can avoid any serious gaffes, reach across the aisle, and execute a successful campaign deep into the NCAA Tournament.
Tell Jeff who he resembles at jbakkensen@georgetownvoice.com
