The past few weeks has seen millions of high school seniors across the country find out their college admissions fate. And with that comes the release of the admissions statistics for Georgetown University, which annually reasserts the university as one of the more selective and competitive schools to gain admittance to in the country.
You can attribute this year’s 16 percent acceptance rate to the desirability of a Georgetown education, the talented academic pool it draws from, and the world-class faculty that it boasts. You can base it off Georgetown’s location and the post-graduate opportunities available to those with a Georgetown degree.
But while these are all valid reasons, there’s really only one reason for Georgetown’s emergence as one of the country’s more elite and selective universities. You can thank Patrick Ewing.
That seems like a phrase that many partisans of the Georgetown men’s basketball team have uttered multiple times during their fandom. The seven-foot giant left a lasting mark on the court for the Hoyas. Ewing was the leader of the dominant Hoya team of the mid-1980s that advanced to three Final Fours, including winning a national championship. He was a three-time All-American, two-time Big East Player of the Year, and Naismith College Player of the Year during his tenure on the Hilltop.
But off the court, no one person has had more of an positive impact on Georgetown University than Ewing himself. The most important date in the history of the university, I would argue, is Feb. 2, 1981, when Ewing decided to wear the blue and gray uniform and play for then-Head Coach John Thompson Jr.’s squad. Because of the exceptional play of the Ewing-led Hoyas, the school’s profile was instantly elevated from that of a predominantly Northeast-based Catholic school to a national university that would attract students not only from all over the country, but also from the world. In just a three-year period during the mid-1980s, the number of applicants to Georgetown skyrocketed by 45 percent. You can attribute that to Ewing.
Georgetown and the effects of Patrick Ewing’s tenure here is just one of the many examples of a college admissions theory called the Flutie Effect, which refers to the phenomenon of having a successful college sports team increase the exposure and prominence of a university. It’s named after former Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie, whose game-winning Hail Mary pass in 1984 in a nationally televised game against Miami helped lead to an increase in applications in the years that followed.
As we have seen during March Madness year after year, sports have the unique ability to bring a community together. This unity around a common cause, in this case a basketball team, has the ability to transform a university and build closer ties between its students, creating desirable experiences. These formative college experiences make graduates want to donate more to the school and stay connected, leading to a devoted alumni base ready to give back to their school to help endow scholarships or build the newest dorm or library.
It’s because of this cause and effect that so many colleges devote millions of dollars to athletics, specifically football and basketball, every year. It’s why either a football or basketball coach is the highest paid state employee in 40 out of our country’s 50 states. And it’s why other schools, in an effort to attain the glory and recognition that Georgetown did with Ewing, are willing to take shortcuts in order to quickly find success on the court or on the field. Just google Binghamton basketball or Southern Methodist football, examples that I could write a whole article about.
Although many criticize the sometimes ridiculous amounts of money spent on big-time football and basketball, the benefits of having a major sports program are undeniable. What would Notre Dame be without its football team? Or Duke without its basketball team? Even though all were already prominent national universities, the recognition that comes with these teams have helped them grown even more.
One of my fondest memories at Georgetown was the last basketball home game played between the Hoyas and Syracuse during spring break. Played in front of a boisterous, sold-out crowd, the experience of a dominating Hoya victory is unforgettable to this day. We all stormed the court, proud of the accomplishments of our Hoyas, who won the Big East regular season title due to the win. For all of our differing backgrounds here at this school in terms of religion, ethnicity, race, and economic status, the whole Georgetown community united at Verizon Center that Saturday afternoon, bonded by a common cause that no one, not even the menacing Syracuse Orange could break. And for that I say, “thank you Patrick Ewing.”
