Every record book has a story to tell. College athletes making the most of their short careers. Baseball players chasing lifelong achievements. Rivalries between two warring teams. Often, we forget the events of an individual game. But we remember the winners, the losers, and the great achievements. Much of Georgetown’s football history is wrapped up in rumors, disparate accounts, and the hard work of historians like John Reagan (MSB ’84), whom the Voice interviewed for the last issue about the slump our program is in. However, most of the stories are lost to time.
So, let’s dig into the record books and see what stories can be uncovered in the school’s long history.
Georgetown’s book starts in 1887, although some students played football on the Hilltop for several years prior. Our first recorded game was a blowout, with the Hoyas winning 46-6 against Emerson Institute, especially impressive considering that touchdowns were worth only four points, extra points two, and field goals worth five. Georgetown would finish its first season with a 2-1 record, only losing to … Alexandria High School?
This is one of the events I wish I could time travel back to because it raises so many questions. First, how did a bunch of college students lose to teenagers? Were the children born in Alexandria especially strong? Did our team have the flu? To be fair, antibiotics had not yet been discovered, so maybe our players were just feeling extra sick that day … maybe.
In 1888, we would lose to Alexandria again, which was the last time Georgetown played them. While Georgetown has never beaten a high school, they do have a winning record against the SEC’s South Carolina, who we beat in 1915. By the transitive property, Alexandria High School is a better program than the Gamecocks and therefore should receive an invitation to join the SEC.
The most confusing scoreline in Georgetown history might be New York University beating us two to nothing in 1930. So our quarterback was sacked in the endzone. Did it happen early and leave the Hoya fans on edge waiting for a comeback that would not appear? Or did it happen late in the game, with everyone losing their minds? Did the spectators know they would watch the lowest scoring loss Georgetown has ever played? There’s a certain magic to imagining these scenarios, and with 100 years of history, it’s hard not to have the mind race after reading the numbers over and over.
Record books are not just a collection of random stats. Even when we don’t know who scored a touchdown or what day the game was played, wins and losses can still tell us the state of the world.
For example, we have been playing military schools since the inception of football at the Hilltop—and even call out the Navy in our fight song. As such, we played a lot of games against the military before Georgetown football’s disbandment in 1951. During times of peace, Georgetown has a 15 wins, 16 losses, and three ties (15-16-3) record against the armed forces, for a winning percentage under 50 percent. Yet, while the military was at war during the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II, Georgetown had a win percentage of 57 percent.
Records also speak to long lost rivalries that most students in their relatively short time here will never hear about. We have a long history with Gallaudet, with Georgetown winning 22 times in 26 games. This series lasted over 100 years, being played sporadically from 1889 to 1992. This is one game that should be brought into the 21st century, as we don’t often play other D.C. schools.
The Hoyas have played Fordham the most, going 23-38-3, and will face them for the 65th time this November.
This next one is not really a rivalry, but we did beat the Washington YMCA three times, including twice in 1893. I wonder if they would be willing to schedule us again in 2025?
What do the books have to say about the “rivalries” named in our fight song? We did often hear Yale boast about their Boola-Boola, as we have never beaten them (0-6). Navy has also yelled a lot, as we have barely beaten them as many times as we have tied (4-13-2). We are tied all-time with Cornell at least (2-2)! Sadly, Harvard has also bested us in a similar manner as Yale (0-5). Holy Cross has crossed us a lot (10-20), which must be why we call them out. Finally, the proud old Princeton Tigers’ only loss to the Hoyas came in a spectacular showing on ESPNU in 2012, beating us in every other matchup (1-8).
Yikes. Not exactly the yell that wins the day, but hey! We are a basketball school anyway.
It makes sense to record how many times a team won and lost in a season, especially when everyone wants to prove they are the best. But for those numbers to last over 100 years? That is hard to imagine. Legacies have been defined by simple tallies on paper, recorded for bragging rights and the love of the game. These statistics build a tradition that makes football a core experience of Georgetown. Many Hoyas have seen the team play over the last century, culminating in a 529-464-30 record, and we are able to imagine the lives of long gone students just by digging into these numbers.
I know given another 100 years, others will look back to the records of our time. I hope they think about our potential during the canceled 2020 season. I hope they wonder how we didn’t win a home game in 2021 and 2022. Finally, I hope they wonder what it was like being a Hoya in the 2020s.
