Along the row of trophies that surrounding the foyer of McDonough Gymnasium, amidst boxing gloves and leather helmets of bygone eras, sits the Steven Dean Memorial Trophy. Named for an inspirational student of Georgetown in the early 1970's who served as sports information director at Catholic University before his death, the trophy was the manifestation of a fierce if largely forgotten rivalry between a pair of former Division I football powers that trudged in the isolation of Division III. Where once Dutch Bergman and Jack Hagerty were leading their respective teams to the Orange Bowl, these schools now fought annually on the windswept confines of Kehoe Field and the rotting remains of what was Brookland Stadium.
Now placed somewhere in an office in Burr Gymnasium. the D.C [Mayor's] Cup will not get a place on the trophy shelf of Howard University's honors, much less Adrian Fenty's post-mayoral holdings. More likely, someone will throw it away for no good reason. Which, in hindsight, says a lot about a rivalry that never was, and two schools that snared apathy from the jaws of opportunity.
When announced on April 24, 2008, it was an idea whose time had come, especially with the District's two I-AA teams both in need of a boost in attention. "I have seen both schools play over the years and as a Washingtonian, I always wondered why we we're not playing each other," said Dwight Datcher, the new Howard athletic director who was a longtime member of the Georgetown staff, including a tour as an assistant basketball coach under John Thompson in the 1970's. "It is a plus for both institutions because it will involve students, alumni and faculty."
The Howard coaching staff even seemed excited.
"This is something that is long overdue", said HU coach Corey Bailey. "It makes sense to have the game since we are the only two Division 1 football playing schools in Washington. These are two outstanding academic institutions and this match-up will bring together alumni, students and fans."
Just two years later, the Cup is no more. Howard announced its 2010 schedule this year, opening with Holy Cross, not Georgetown. For its part, Georgetown has traded for Bison of another herd--namely, North Dakota State, where at least the game will be indoors at the 19,000 seat Fargodome and outside the elements of the approaching North Dakota winter.
The D.C. elements (natural and man-made) proved to foreshadow a rivalry that never was.
In 2008, the game was postponed for the arrival of an incoming tropical storm that brushed past the D.C. area. Played a day later, an announced crowd of 6,085 saw Georgetown (no, make that Kenny Mitchell) walk off with a win, 12-7. Few students from either school showed, few alumni, fewer still from the press.
And aside from a general sense of pride to open the season, Georgetown's bump for the game was minimal, losing its next eight of nine. Howard fared none better, finishing 1-10.
In 2009, the elements returned, only in the form of a cold, miserable rain. The crowds expected from Howard never materialized-- not even the band showed up. The Homecoming crowd at GU was so dispirited (some said, disgusted) by the poor play on the field that most deserted the MSF by the second quarter. The teams combined for 246 yards in penalties in a 14-11 finish was viewed by no more than 500 by the end of the game, and not more than 100 across the field. Georgetown had a first and goal at the two yard line late in the game and proceeded to call three quarterback sneaks without success. Howard won back the Cup and any bragging rights thereto, and proceeded to finish the season with one more win. Georgetown never got closer to a win all year.
Not with a bang, but a whimper, the Cup went unfilled. Datcher, by all accounts a good athletic director, ran into the inertia that grips Howard atheltics, and was replaced at year's end by vice provost Charles Gibbs. That a vice provost moves into athletics should say something about Howard athletics, but it was at best a lateral move.
"You have to credit and mock HU for making this move this way," wrote the HBCU Sports Journal. "Likely, they were fully aware of the kind of pushback the alumni and students would have against a reviled university executive obtaining more power in the school leadership structure. Perhaps Gibbs, in tandem with University Relations, figured if they never announced the move, no one would know until it really mattered – such as a major gift coming into the department, or the firing of a coach. Perhaps they believed that by the time fans noticed that [Gibbs] was in charge, more pressing issues would be at hand than his clandestine hiring."
"They aren’t at liberty to tell the story of a former admissions officer rising through the ranks to head an athletic department, because his career path is the only thing more illogical than his appointment as athletic director. They can’t expect donations to come fluttering from Heaven; neither roses nor checks fall easily at the feet of disgraced executives."
To an outsider, Howard University exists in its own world. To the Bison, Howard is the "Mecca", the Harvard of HBCU's, but its athletic teams remain at the bottom of Division I. Excepting the street party called Homecomning, the Bison averaged just 2,715 a game this season, not much more than the 2,400 or so at the grim MSF. The basketball team finished 7-25 and drew 991 a game. For a school which rightly prides itself on some of the best students in the HBCU market, it lags considerably behind its HBCU peers in sports, much less other local schools, and after all these years, football there remains more than a well kept secret. So maybe it's not so surprising that with Howard struggling against a team such as Georgetown, the new athletic leadership wanted to walk away.
The two games drew a total of 8,715. Would it have been any different at a neutral site--RFK Stadium, perhaps? Would a marketing campaign corodinated between the schools have made a difference, with a TV broadcast? Could an effort to invite all the local high school kids in the District have made it a true city-wide event? And for its part, couldn't the mayor's office have even bothered to issue a simple press release about it?
These are things that take time, patience, initiaitve, planning and money. Neither school seems to have much of any at this point, much less the city iself.
There hasn't been a truly meaningful "bragging rights" football game in the city since the old DC city title high school football games, which drew as many as 50,000 to RFK before a riot broke out after the 1962 Eastern-St. John's game, and the game was soon discontinued. The DCIAA "city title" now draws friends and family crowds, dwarfed by the Maryland and Virginia schools beyond its borders. The last time these schools got a headline, it was the announcement that Coolidge HS had hired a woman as head football coach.
On the college front, the Eagle Bank Bowl was begun to draw local interest in football, and drew just 23,000 this past December, one of the smallest bowl turnouts nationwide...and yet no one considered and/or pursued local sponsorship of Georgetown-Howard? With two of the most prominent universities right within its borders, the efforts to promote the D.C. Cup were so half-hearted as to suggest that neither school really cared enough about it to make it a priority, and it's now already forgotten, much like the teams themselves.
"The Bison open the season on September 4 against Holy Cross in Worcester, MA," writes the Howard atheltics web site announcing its schedule. "Holy Cross is a perennial contender in the Football Championships Subdivision", something they did not say about Georgetown.
Georgetown hasn't announced its schedule. Rest assured it won't mention Howard like that.
So next time fans gripe and moan that the schools of the area won't play each other, ask them about the D.C. Cup.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Help Wanted
The second week in March is a rite of passage on the Georgetown athletics calendar, the week that no matter what the sport, eyes are fixed on New York.
For 30 years, the Big East men's tournament has become a magnet not only for the basketball fans among us (myself included), but for much of the Georgetown athletics and development staff-- a time to reconnect with the New York base, meet some new fundraising contacts, and take part in the conference's showplace event. While not in the Big East, football has also taken advantage of the weekend over the years, with alumni receptions and meet-and-greets with the head coach.
And over the years, you couldn't miss a Frank Rienzo, a Joe Lang, or a Bernard Muir moving quickly through the halls at the Affinia Southgate or Madison Square Garden, because this was no week off for them. Come to think of it, there are no weekends off for that position. But for only the second time in 30 years, Georgetown heads to the Big East in continued search of an athletic director, and the time it has taken to fill the position says a lot about how important (and daunting) the challenge is.
At first glance, it would seem to be a job with a lot of takers:
"Help Wanted: Top 25 university in BCS-level Division I conference invites nominations and applications for Director of Athletics. Sucessful candidate will lead an award-winning intercollegiate program with a budget comparable to Mississippi State and New Mexico, the largest budget of any major school not playing I-A football. Extensive national coverage during winter months on CBS and ESPN, with instantly identifiable worldwide brand for licensing opportunities. Frequent exposure to national leaders, professional athletes, and local celebrities in vicinity. Work may extend to nights and weekends, some travel required."
Were it that easy! The days where an athletic director was an early retirement job for an ex-coach are long, long gone. No more are the days where an athltic director would pay the bills, say hello to a visiting trustee on their way through town, and get in a couple of rounds of golf before the weekend--it's literally become the CEO of a multi-million dollar company, with 150 employees, 800 participants, and more than a few alumni and fans who mistakenly think the athletic director answers to them. Little wonder that when Michigan hired its new director, it hired a former CEO from Domino's Pizza. Faculty bemoan how athletics is a business, but if it's not run with sound business principles, things break down in a hurry, unlike the glacial pace of academia, where tenure is a lifetime pass and philosophy professors don't have to present a win-loss record to keep their jobs.
In April 2009, the Wilmington News-Journal announced Georgetown AD Bernard Muir was a candidate for the director's post at Delaware. That surprised a lot of people, especially as Muir was considered a rising star in NCAA circles and, to most, Delaware is not a step up from Georgetown. But unless someone is prepared to make Georgetown their last career stop, the employment door swings two ways: you either open the door or someone opens the door for you. Muir decided to exit on his own terms a month later, and for the last 10 months, Georgetown has been on the lookout for his sucessor.
(It bears repeating that Georgetown has been well served by interim director Dan Porterfield, who has done great work to keep things on an even keel and whose service to this University deserves a lot of praise. Of course, Dan already has a job at Georgetown (sometimes more than one) and interim does not mean indefinite, so the need to bring in a new leader is as important for him as it is for the coaches and players.)
It's not surprising that the search has taken this long--the next paragraph of this fictional job listing would give any serious candidate pause:
"Candidate must manage largest intercollegiate program in conference with less resources per student than any peer school. Must manage revenue stream of one sport with rising scholarship and program needs of 28 other teams, 25 of which have no revenue potential. Must work within university bureaucracy to help raise approx. $10-15 million for athletics annually. Must promptly address over $100 million in deferred/delayed construction projects without funds in hand, with extremely limited space, and with no debt financing. Candidate must have all teams competing at highest competitive levels and to still graduate 100% of seniors amidst rigorous educational requirements, without scandal or sanction."
This is not an easy situation. There is no T. Boone Hoya waiting to fill the cofffers, no Yum Brands or FedEx waiting to build an athletics campus down the street. A sixty year old building houses a staff of 150 when it was built for six. Kehoe Field has been unplayable for seven years, the track and field program hasn't seen its on-campus track in almost 14 years. Baseball field? Gone. Two 100-yard fields are the remaining sources of outdoor athletic space not just for teams, but for 6,500 students. A boathouse has been in the planning stages since the second term of the Reagan administration.
And then there's football--where does an new AD start with this? Georgetown isn't sitting at the bottom of the Big East, it's sitting with a 1-22 record in the Patriot League over the last four seasons. Recruits see aging, temporary bleachers surrounded by piles of construction dirt, and coaches are still expected to outrecruit Yale and Princeton for kids with a 1400 SAT and a 4.8 in the 40...and stay within two touchdowns of them in the process.
But through it all, the most important part of the job listing reads: "Georgetown University". It's the tie that binds this job to a wealth of great opportunitiss and possibilities, no less with a football program that could do so much more with a strong athletic director at the helm. Richmond went from almost downgrading its football program to national champions in six years, and will debut a $25 million on-campus stadium this season. If Georgetown got behind its football program, the turnaround could be almost as dramatic.
Yes, it's a tough job, but Georgetown can't long survive in major college athletics without an athletic director, one who will not only articulate the strategic visiton of athletics at the University, but chart a course for it to succeed and excel. It might just be the second toughest job at the school.
The toughest? The president that has to hire him.
For 30 years, the Big East men's tournament has become a magnet not only for the basketball fans among us (myself included), but for much of the Georgetown athletics and development staff-- a time to reconnect with the New York base, meet some new fundraising contacts, and take part in the conference's showplace event. While not in the Big East, football has also taken advantage of the weekend over the years, with alumni receptions and meet-and-greets with the head coach.
And over the years, you couldn't miss a Frank Rienzo, a Joe Lang, or a Bernard Muir moving quickly through the halls at the Affinia Southgate or Madison Square Garden, because this was no week off for them. Come to think of it, there are no weekends off for that position. But for only the second time in 30 years, Georgetown heads to the Big East in continued search of an athletic director, and the time it has taken to fill the position says a lot about how important (and daunting) the challenge is.
At first glance, it would seem to be a job with a lot of takers:
"Help Wanted: Top 25 university in BCS-level Division I conference invites nominations and applications for Director of Athletics. Sucessful candidate will lead an award-winning intercollegiate program with a budget comparable to Mississippi State and New Mexico, the largest budget of any major school not playing I-A football. Extensive national coverage during winter months on CBS and ESPN, with instantly identifiable worldwide brand for licensing opportunities. Frequent exposure to national leaders, professional athletes, and local celebrities in vicinity. Work may extend to nights and weekends, some travel required."
Were it that easy! The days where an athletic director was an early retirement job for an ex-coach are long, long gone. No more are the days where an athltic director would pay the bills, say hello to a visiting trustee on their way through town, and get in a couple of rounds of golf before the weekend--it's literally become the CEO of a multi-million dollar company, with 150 employees, 800 participants, and more than a few alumni and fans who mistakenly think the athletic director answers to them. Little wonder that when Michigan hired its new director, it hired a former CEO from Domino's Pizza. Faculty bemoan how athletics is a business, but if it's not run with sound business principles, things break down in a hurry, unlike the glacial pace of academia, where tenure is a lifetime pass and philosophy professors don't have to present a win-loss record to keep their jobs.
In April 2009, the Wilmington News-Journal announced Georgetown AD Bernard Muir was a candidate for the director's post at Delaware. That surprised a lot of people, especially as Muir was considered a rising star in NCAA circles and, to most, Delaware is not a step up from Georgetown. But unless someone is prepared to make Georgetown their last career stop, the employment door swings two ways: you either open the door or someone opens the door for you. Muir decided to exit on his own terms a month later, and for the last 10 months, Georgetown has been on the lookout for his sucessor.
(It bears repeating that Georgetown has been well served by interim director Dan Porterfield, who has done great work to keep things on an even keel and whose service to this University deserves a lot of praise. Of course, Dan already has a job at Georgetown (sometimes more than one) and interim does not mean indefinite, so the need to bring in a new leader is as important for him as it is for the coaches and players.)
It's not surprising that the search has taken this long--the next paragraph of this fictional job listing would give any serious candidate pause:
"Candidate must manage largest intercollegiate program in conference with less resources per student than any peer school. Must manage revenue stream of one sport with rising scholarship and program needs of 28 other teams, 25 of which have no revenue potential. Must work within university bureaucracy to help raise approx. $10-15 million for athletics annually. Must promptly address over $100 million in deferred/delayed construction projects without funds in hand, with extremely limited space, and with no debt financing. Candidate must have all teams competing at highest competitive levels and to still graduate 100% of seniors amidst rigorous educational requirements, without scandal or sanction."
This is not an easy situation. There is no T. Boone Hoya waiting to fill the cofffers, no Yum Brands or FedEx waiting to build an athletics campus down the street. A sixty year old building houses a staff of 150 when it was built for six. Kehoe Field has been unplayable for seven years, the track and field program hasn't seen its on-campus track in almost 14 years. Baseball field? Gone. Two 100-yard fields are the remaining sources of outdoor athletic space not just for teams, but for 6,500 students. A boathouse has been in the planning stages since the second term of the Reagan administration.
And then there's football--where does an new AD start with this? Georgetown isn't sitting at the bottom of the Big East, it's sitting with a 1-22 record in the Patriot League over the last four seasons. Recruits see aging, temporary bleachers surrounded by piles of construction dirt, and coaches are still expected to outrecruit Yale and Princeton for kids with a 1400 SAT and a 4.8 in the 40...and stay within two touchdowns of them in the process.
But through it all, the most important part of the job listing reads: "Georgetown University". It's the tie that binds this job to a wealth of great opportunitiss and possibilities, no less with a football program that could do so much more with a strong athletic director at the helm. Richmond went from almost downgrading its football program to national champions in six years, and will debut a $25 million on-campus stadium this season. If Georgetown got behind its football program, the turnaround could be almost as dramatic.
Yes, it's a tough job, but Georgetown can't long survive in major college athletics without an athletic director, one who will not only articulate the strategic visiton of athletics at the University, but chart a course for it to succeed and excel. It might just be the second toughest job at the school.
The toughest? The president that has to hire him.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Football's "Imperative"
The 2010 off-season is about a third complete, and when you're Georgetown, maybe there isn't that much to say.
Outside of a Patriot League release on the all-academic teams, there's been no word from GU on many football-related items. Spring practice dates have not been announced, the Gridiron Club banquet has not been announced, the Multi-Sport Facility remains on the tarmac, and there has been no announcement of the two vacant assistant coaching positions.
And in reality, none of those announcements, by and of themselves, change what lies ahead for Georgetown in the short term. You don't drive out of the ditch that is 0-11 with press releases, you do it with better resources and hard work. And to the former, there's something that you're not hearing about that needs to be discussed.
Georgetown is not 0-11 because of spring practice or the Multi-Sport Facility or assistant coaches--in large measure, it is 0-11 because it lacks the financial abilities of peer schools to recruit and admit football players that can elevate the program. The Department of Education public reports confirm that Georgetown's budget is half that of its closest competitor (Bucknell) and about a third of what Fordham and Colgate spend on football, in large part due to the lack of grant-based financial aid available to recruts. This was a gap the Hoyas faced when joining the PL in 2001 and it has been exacerbated in the intervening years. Whereas Colgate can offer the equivalent of full rides to 55 players on the team, Georgetown can't come close, and relies on loans and work study to fill the gap for recruits.
A flush always beats a pair in poker, and a grant always beats a loan in college recruiting.
This is not only an issue on the gridiron but for admissions as a whole--the "yield" for accepted students at Georgetown (the percentage of those that accept the offer) is on the decline. Is Georgetown somehow less attractive? On the cotrary, it remains a bellwether for top students, but these students are increasingly passing on the GU offer for one major reason: cost. Georgetown is now the third most expensive college in the U.S., and the need for a family to take out tens of thousands of dollars in loans versus getting a grant to attend almost any other college puts Georgetown's offer at risk.
"Starting two years ago … a lot of our major competitors launched major financial aid programs," director of admissions Charles Deacon told The HOYA last semester. "Georgetown didn’t have the financial base to [match] those kinds of programs. So the ramping up of programs among a lot of our key competitors, we believe, with evidence from surveys, did impact the yield.”
To illustrate the widening gap, particularly among those peers in the Ivy League, the admissions office posted these statistics about what it now takes to get into these schools:
Titled the "1789 Scholarship Imperative", its goal is as audacious as it is vital: $500 million in the next five years to support need-based scholarships. Based on the class-leadership model of the Georgetown Scholarship Program, the Imperative seeks to raise the awareness of annual giving as a vital partner in Georgetown's ability to reach and retain the best students each year with scholarships of $25,000, or half the cost of a year at Georgetown.
As it relates to athletics in general, and football in specific, the impact of such awards could be transformative, at least in the absence of full scholarships.
But if you haven't heard much about the 1789 Scholarship Imperative lately, you're not alone. Owing to an executive change in University Development in early 2010, the Imperative got off to a quieter start and, five months later, is still not well known among alumni.
But over the next six months, the opportunities to engage alumni with a call to action to support the 1789 Scholarship Imperative are out there, and none more so in football, where the class of 2011 recruiting is ramping up. The more coaches know what they'll have to work with on financial aid, the better they can build the bridges that Georgetown needs so much in recruiting. It's one thing to tell a recruit that Georgetown offers grants, loans, and work-study, another to have financial commitments on hand and ready for FY11.
This is the challenge--and opportunity-- for the Gridiron Club between now and June 30, the traditional end of the fiscal year. Since all gifts, be they $25 or $25,000, can count in this effort, the need is out there to properly communicate what gifts are part of this effort (versus those that are not), how their gift can go towards football financial aid and not into a general pool of aid support, and how directed gifts can pay dividends for recruiting next fall. The Imperative may still be a work in progress until next fall, but it is open for business right now and the opportunity for football constituents to be in the first generation of leadership for this effort would be a tremendous opportunity for institutional approval and support for its efforts.
If football is going to dig itself out of the ditch of the past few years, it needs talent, and a lot of talent needs competitive financial aid to keep Georgetown in the conversation--we know good recruits aren't coming to GU for the stadium or the training facilities but if it can be cost-competitive to choose Georgetown over Fordham, over Colgate, or some of the Ivies, the opportunity for competitive gains through recruiting become more realistic.
(Yes, I mentioned Fordham. As many readers know, Fordham gave the PL the Bronx cheer and announced they are awarding full merit-based scholarships beginning this year. A full ride to Fordham suddenly becomes more than competitive for a lot of families against a package of grants and loans from Georgetown.)
Bottom line, football needs to do better and soon. The way to get better is to get better players, and the way to get better players is to be competitive with your peer group in recruiting support. To date, Georgetown hasn't been close. If the 1789 Scholarship Imperative is offering a doorway to be competitive athletically as well as academically, the football community ought to take that ball and run with it.
Outside of a Patriot League release on the all-academic teams, there's been no word from GU on many football-related items. Spring practice dates have not been announced, the Gridiron Club banquet has not been announced, the Multi-Sport Facility remains on the tarmac, and there has been no announcement of the two vacant assistant coaching positions.
And in reality, none of those announcements, by and of themselves, change what lies ahead for Georgetown in the short term. You don't drive out of the ditch that is 0-11 with press releases, you do it with better resources and hard work. And to the former, there's something that you're not hearing about that needs to be discussed.
Georgetown is not 0-11 because of spring practice or the Multi-Sport Facility or assistant coaches--in large measure, it is 0-11 because it lacks the financial abilities of peer schools to recruit and admit football players that can elevate the program. The Department of Education public reports confirm that Georgetown's budget is half that of its closest competitor (Bucknell) and about a third of what Fordham and Colgate spend on football, in large part due to the lack of grant-based financial aid available to recruts. This was a gap the Hoyas faced when joining the PL in 2001 and it has been exacerbated in the intervening years. Whereas Colgate can offer the equivalent of full rides to 55 players on the team, Georgetown can't come close, and relies on loans and work study to fill the gap for recruits.
A flush always beats a pair in poker, and a grant always beats a loan in college recruiting.
This is not only an issue on the gridiron but for admissions as a whole--the "yield" for accepted students at Georgetown (the percentage of those that accept the offer) is on the decline. Is Georgetown somehow less attractive? On the cotrary, it remains a bellwether for top students, but these students are increasingly passing on the GU offer for one major reason: cost. Georgetown is now the third most expensive college in the U.S., and the need for a family to take out tens of thousands of dollars in loans versus getting a grant to attend almost any other college puts Georgetown's offer at risk.
"Starting two years ago … a lot of our major competitors launched major financial aid programs," director of admissions Charles Deacon told The HOYA last semester. "Georgetown didn’t have the financial base to [match] those kinds of programs. So the ramping up of programs among a lot of our key competitors, we believe, with evidence from surveys, did impact the yield.”
To illustrate the widening gap, particularly among those peers in the Ivy League, the admissions office posted these statistics about what it now takes to get into these schools:
- "Brown University has eliminated the loan portion of students' financial aid packages and replaced it with scholarship funds for students whose family income is less than $30,000 per year.
- At Columbia University, all undergraduates from families with incomes of $50,000 or less will receive enough aid from Columbia to eliminate the need for borrowing.
- Dartmouth College waives all student loans during the first year of study for students whose family incomes are less than $45,000. (Note: this has since been amended.)
- Harvard University waives the parent contribution for parent income level below $60,000.
- The University of Pennsylvania offers no loans to students with parent incomes less than $50,000.
- Princeton University has replaced all university-offered loans with grants.
- Yale University waives the parent contribution for incomes below $60,000."
Titled the "1789 Scholarship Imperative", its goal is as audacious as it is vital: $500 million in the next five years to support need-based scholarships. Based on the class-leadership model of the Georgetown Scholarship Program, the Imperative seeks to raise the awareness of annual giving as a vital partner in Georgetown's ability to reach and retain the best students each year with scholarships of $25,000, or half the cost of a year at Georgetown.
As it relates to athletics in general, and football in specific, the impact of such awards could be transformative, at least in the absence of full scholarships.
But if you haven't heard much about the 1789 Scholarship Imperative lately, you're not alone. Owing to an executive change in University Development in early 2010, the Imperative got off to a quieter start and, five months later, is still not well known among alumni.
But over the next six months, the opportunities to engage alumni with a call to action to support the 1789 Scholarship Imperative are out there, and none more so in football, where the class of 2011 recruiting is ramping up. The more coaches know what they'll have to work with on financial aid, the better they can build the bridges that Georgetown needs so much in recruiting. It's one thing to tell a recruit that Georgetown offers grants, loans, and work-study, another to have financial commitments on hand and ready for FY11.
This is the challenge--and opportunity-- for the Gridiron Club between now and June 30, the traditional end of the fiscal year. Since all gifts, be they $25 or $25,000, can count in this effort, the need is out there to properly communicate what gifts are part of this effort (versus those that are not), how their gift can go towards football financial aid and not into a general pool of aid support, and how directed gifts can pay dividends for recruiting next fall. The Imperative may still be a work in progress until next fall, but it is open for business right now and the opportunity for football constituents to be in the first generation of leadership for this effort would be a tremendous opportunity for institutional approval and support for its efforts.
If football is going to dig itself out of the ditch of the past few years, it needs talent, and a lot of talent needs competitive financial aid to keep Georgetown in the conversation--we know good recruits aren't coming to GU for the stadium or the training facilities but if it can be cost-competitive to choose Georgetown over Fordham, over Colgate, or some of the Ivies, the opportunity for competitive gains through recruiting become more realistic.
(Yes, I mentioned Fordham. As many readers know, Fordham gave the PL the Bronx cheer and announced they are awarding full merit-based scholarships beginning this year. A full ride to Fordham suddenly becomes more than competitive for a lot of families against a package of grants and loans from Georgetown.)
Bottom line, football needs to do better and soon. The way to get better is to get better players, and the way to get better players is to be competitive with your peer group in recruiting support. To date, Georgetown hasn't been close. If the 1789 Scholarship Imperative is offering a doorway to be competitive athletically as well as academically, the football community ought to take that ball and run with it.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Just Another Day
OK, so the beginning of February is the farthest thing from college football season, so maybe it's fitting that one day in the midst of winter is the sport's version of Christmas Day.
At least for one day, every Division I college program can open up gifts in front of a crowd of well wishers (never mind that they wrapped the gifts themselves) and proclaim to a waiting world four words that reverberate throughout National Signing Day 2010:
"Our best class ever."
Whether you're Alabama or Army, National Signing Day is a ray of hope, a turning of the page for whatever ailed your team in 2009. And no, it won't radically change the hierarchy of the sport, but like spring training for baseball, it's a time where every team has something to look forward to in the weeks and months to come.
That is, except where National Signing Day is an afterthought.
Georgetown University.
For a variety of reasons, Georgetown chooses not to take the opportunity to showcase its incoming class on this occasion; never mind the goodwill that other Patriot League schools build by hosting events for coaches and alumni and have the same admissions firewalls for recruiting Georgetown has to deal with. The technical answer is that Georgetown won't announce players until they have confirmed an offer of admission and sent in a deposit, which is sometime after May 1, but when other PL schools are hosting events and Georgetown does not, you have to ask if Georgetown is missing out on some much-needed optimism around a program in the I-AA ditch and facing the dilemma of a changing scholarship landscape in its own league.
There is a conspiracy theory out there that suggests Georgetown doesn't release names because they actually fill the list after signing day (presumably to pick up those not signed earlier by other PL schools), but this is false. While I understand the rationale for a conservative approach, it is an opportunity lost.
It is more concerning, however, when local lists are published without any Georgetown representation--presumably these lists are coming from the high schools and players themselves. When the Washington Post lists six local signings by Ivy League teams and various recruits headed not just to Maryland or Virginia, but places like Holy Cross, Fordham, Marist, Bryant...but not Georgetown, it reinforces the perception that Georgetown is out of sight and out of mind for local recruits. It's no secret that Georgetown does not sign many local kids and high school coaches take note of this. However unfair, this perception reflects poorly on Kevin Kelly and his staff that Georgetown is not even a consideration for DC area recruits and their coaches.
National Signing Day also presents an opportunity for coaches to get in front of its boosters and constituents with a message of hope and optimism. This too, is an opportunity lost by Georgetown. Even something as simple as a letter from the head coach on the web site thanking supporters for hanging in there through an awful year, outlining what is ahead for the upcoming season, and commenting in general (if not specific) on the quality of the heretofore undisclosed recruits would be a sign that there is more to look forward in 2010 than what was seen in 2009.
Yes, Georgetown fans need a boost of optimism. The last four Kelly recruiting classes didn't turn this around, period, and if 2010 is the turning point, well, let's hear about it, and let's welcome the opportunity of growth and improvement. Georgetown is not recruiting students on an 0-11 record, they are selling growth and success. And recruits aren't coming to GU to be 0-11, they want to win. Let's hear about it, too.
To borrow a phrase from Kevin Kelly's former boss, Georgetown Football has a story to tell, and the introduction of the next class in The Long (Blue &) Gray Line are stories waiting to be told. Every one of these young men are looking forward to the tremendous opportunity to study and to play football at Georgetown, and every one comes with a record of scholastic and competitive excellence that's worth talking about. This staff doesn't recruit warm bodies, it recruits men of achievement, and it doesn't wait for walk-ons to fill the roster. And if Feb. 3 is not the proper forum for Georgetown to tell us about its next generation of Hoyas, well, there needs to be a time and place to do so.
Standing at 0-11 is not a time to lay low, it's a time to stand up and be noticed. At least for one day, Georgetown is not in the mix.
At least for one day, every Division I college program can open up gifts in front of a crowd of well wishers (never mind that they wrapped the gifts themselves) and proclaim to a waiting world four words that reverberate throughout National Signing Day 2010:
"Our best class ever."
Whether you're Alabama or Army, National Signing Day is a ray of hope, a turning of the page for whatever ailed your team in 2009. And no, it won't radically change the hierarchy of the sport, but like spring training for baseball, it's a time where every team has something to look forward to in the weeks and months to come.
That is, except where National Signing Day is an afterthought.
Georgetown University.
For a variety of reasons, Georgetown chooses not to take the opportunity to showcase its incoming class on this occasion; never mind the goodwill that other Patriot League schools build by hosting events for coaches and alumni and have the same admissions firewalls for recruiting Georgetown has to deal with. The technical answer is that Georgetown won't announce players until they have confirmed an offer of admission and sent in a deposit, which is sometime after May 1, but when other PL schools are hosting events and Georgetown does not, you have to ask if Georgetown is missing out on some much-needed optimism around a program in the I-AA ditch and facing the dilemma of a changing scholarship landscape in its own league.
There is a conspiracy theory out there that suggests Georgetown doesn't release names because they actually fill the list after signing day (presumably to pick up those not signed earlier by other PL schools), but this is false. While I understand the rationale for a conservative approach, it is an opportunity lost.
It is more concerning, however, when local lists are published without any Georgetown representation--presumably these lists are coming from the high schools and players themselves. When the Washington Post lists six local signings by Ivy League teams and various recruits headed not just to Maryland or Virginia, but places like Holy Cross, Fordham, Marist, Bryant...but not Georgetown, it reinforces the perception that Georgetown is out of sight and out of mind for local recruits. It's no secret that Georgetown does not sign many local kids and high school coaches take note of this. However unfair, this perception reflects poorly on Kevin Kelly and his staff that Georgetown is not even a consideration for DC area recruits and their coaches.
National Signing Day also presents an opportunity for coaches to get in front of its boosters and constituents with a message of hope and optimism. This too, is an opportunity lost by Georgetown. Even something as simple as a letter from the head coach on the web site thanking supporters for hanging in there through an awful year, outlining what is ahead for the upcoming season, and commenting in general (if not specific) on the quality of the heretofore undisclosed recruits would be a sign that there is more to look forward in 2010 than what was seen in 2009.
Yes, Georgetown fans need a boost of optimism. The last four Kelly recruiting classes didn't turn this around, period, and if 2010 is the turning point, well, let's hear about it, and let's welcome the opportunity of growth and improvement. Georgetown is not recruiting students on an 0-11 record, they are selling growth and success. And recruits aren't coming to GU to be 0-11, they want to win. Let's hear about it, too.
To borrow a phrase from Kevin Kelly's former boss, Georgetown Football has a story to tell, and the introduction of the next class in The Long (Blue &) Gray Line are stories waiting to be told. Every one of these young men are looking forward to the tremendous opportunity to study and to play football at Georgetown, and every one comes with a record of scholastic and competitive excellence that's worth talking about. This staff doesn't recruit warm bodies, it recruits men of achievement, and it doesn't wait for walk-ons to fill the roster. And if Feb. 3 is not the proper forum for Georgetown to tell us about its next generation of Hoyas, well, there needs to be a time and place to do so.
Standing at 0-11 is not a time to lay low, it's a time to stand up and be noticed. At least for one day, Georgetown is not in the mix.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Ten Years After
It seems so long ago. Maybe because it was.
If you opened the Washington Post on January 19, 2000 , you would have read about the start of President Clinton’s last year in office, the first Republican caucus of the campaign year between the two leading GOP candidates, businessman Steve Forbes and Texas governor George W. Bush, and rising public concerns about spiking gasoline prices—a gallon of unleaded gas was now $1.25, up from just $0.89 a year ago.
And there on the Post's sports page, the front of the sports page no less, was the announcement that Georgetown University was joining the Patriot League.
I note the front page because it was the first time Georgetown football had made it to C1 of the Post since Scotty Glacken was let go in 1993, and the Hoyas haven’t made the front page since. But it was a turning point for Georgetown’s football history and despite the losses which followed, it was a big change.
Difficult as it may be to some football fans today to conceive, Georgetown was a team on the rise in 1999. Coming off consecutive nine-win seasons, with its head coach pursued by Princeton for its vacant head coaching job, talk of a new stadium coming by, oh, 2003, and a team winning many of its conference games with relative ease (its final two games of the season were won by a combined score of 101-13), times were good for the Hoyas. But Bob Benson knew better, and he led the change for the Hoyas to apply to the Patriot League and leave the MAAC.
“The move to the Patriot League is an expensive one,” said Benson. “For Georgetown University to make this decision, the change must not only be a positive move for the football program, but for the entire university. There must be a vision! Our president, Father Leo O'Donovan , a great man and a true friend, had such a vision. It is really quite simple. Utilize the game of football to create an environment and atmosphere among our students, faculty, and community on an autumn Saturday afternoon and bring to our campus a school spirit on a fall day that is desperately needed.”
Because for all its MAAC success, Iona and Siena weren’t rivals for Georgetown, the Ivies were. But Ivy schools didn’t deign to play MAAC schools, and to get Georgetown on the Ivy radar screen, it needed a step up.
Georgetown wasn’t the first school grabbing a rowboat to leave the sinking MAAC but the most prominent. The league maintained a stand-pat policy in the intervening years, as six MAAC schools dropped the sport and left it with two remaining; Duquesne and Marist. (Of the original six schools in 1993, Georgetown is the only survivor.) However much of a beat-down the PL has become for Georgetown’s win-loss record, and it has, it prevented a much more ominous situation in the fracturing of its former conference.
No one, certainly not the perpetually optimistic Benson, could have quite foreseen what followed. Or maybe he did. After the Hoyas 2001 season opener, a 41-14 loss to Lehigh, a lot of us fans were not altogether disappointed—give Benson a couple of years worth of recruiting classes and Georgetown is going to start beating these teams, or so we thought. The look on Benson’s face that day suggested otherwise.
Absent a larger financial aid budget, Georgetown wasn’t going to out-recruit anyone and that dynamic hasn’t changed much in the last ten years. Georgetown, a welterweight champion in the MAAC, was fighting above its weight class and getting pounded every week for it. The budget didn’t grow significantly past 2004, the Multi-Sport Facility got no institutional traction, and in Benson’s last meeting at Hoyas Unlimited, he handed out copies of a newspaper article detailing how Lafayette was now recruiting alongside Richmond, and had plans to update the decaying Fisher Field. “This is what we’re up against,” he said.
“I covered their first game in the league back on Labor Day weekend of 2001,” said Allentown sports writer Keith Groller. “Lehigh beat them 41-14 that day in Washington and Georgetown talked about how far away they were from competing in the Patriot League. Eight seasons later and they're still far away.”
Ten years taught Georgetown a hard lesson about the cost of change. What will the next ten years bring?
For whatever fans say about it, the Patriot League has been a safe harbor for Georgetown’s football aspirations. It opened the door to Ivy league schools (in its first game in 2003, a 42-20 win over Cornell, albeit 10 straight losses since) and raised the talent level from what it could realistically reach as a MAAC school. But the upcoming questions facing the league over scholarships cast a shadow over its future; one, I would argue, has parallels to the choices made by the MAAC two decades earlier. Georgetown survived the 2000’s because it was a relatively strong program; by contrast, St. John’s and the MAAC brethren had no foundation from which to weather the storm. What do the 2010’s bring?
At a I-AA message board I frequent, I refer to it as the “lady or the tiger” scenario for the league in addressing Fordham’s "request" to convert its program from a PL-style non-scholarship arrangement to a full fledged 60 scholarship program beginning this season, with I-A opponents like Army and Connecticut on the Rams’ schedule within three years. Put aside the competitive question (e.g., if GU can’t beat Fordham now, how does it beat them with 60 scholarships?) and consider these four choices awaiting the PL presidents:
1. Reject Fordham’s scholarship demand and Fordham is gone, with no realistic replacements on the horizon and followed by rising fears that the league will become non-competitive.
2. Go full steam ahead on 60 scholarships and watch Georgetown and Bucknell instantly become non-competitive. The PL runs the risk that other teams will face potential Title IX impacts to scholarship funding and thus imperil the conference as a whole.
3. Let Fordham have its scholarships but no one else, a recipe for trouble down the road when Colgate and Lehigh want what Fordham has...and can’t get it.
4. Leave it to each school on its own to add as many scholarships as they choose, and invite an arms race among the schools. Four schools will have 50 or more scholarships, Bucknell will be two steps behind, and Georgetown will be at the back of the line, not unlike option 2 and not unlike where it stands today. But how do you grow a program (or build a stadium) going 1-10 every year and having your students and alumni grow accustomed to losing 52-7 every week?
Answer: you don’t. And that's a huge problem.
It’s much too simplistic to say that it’s a case of “reject scholarships and lose Fordham, add them and lose Georgetown.” Institutionally speaking, GU has no philosophical prohibition against scholarship athletics and I’m sure it could have some small number of grants available if it came to pass (emphasis on the phrase “small number”). It may be a more telling issue at places like Bucknell or Lafayette, or at a Holy Cross program whose abandonment of scholarships in the 1980’s opened a huge tear in that college’s athletic fabric. Is it still “Ivy lite” if the PL doesn’t play by the Ivy’s rules?
Whatever the outcome, something is coming. And history teaches that while you can’t always change an outcome, you can adapt to it, and in doing so Georgetown can be successful in these uncharted waters if it is prepared to make commitments to do so. It’s been said that it is not the strongest that survive, nor the most intelligent, but those most responsive to change.
Ten years from now, maybe Georgetown is the king of the Patriot League; maybe it’s sitting at 1-10 and wondering why the MSF never got built. But it has the opportunity to chart its own course: following the PL's lead, or finding other solutions which better meet its needs. Maybe that course keeps Georgetown in the PL in ten years, maybe it's a new conference option down the road with more like-minded programs.
The future of the Patriot League is changing, one way or another. And the year 2020 is now as close to Georgetown as the day it joined the league.
If you opened the Washington Post on January 19, 2000 , you would have read about the start of President Clinton’s last year in office, the first Republican caucus of the campaign year between the two leading GOP candidates, businessman Steve Forbes and Texas governor George W. Bush, and rising public concerns about spiking gasoline prices—a gallon of unleaded gas was now $1.25, up from just $0.89 a year ago.
And there on the Post's sports page, the front of the sports page no less, was the announcement that Georgetown University was joining the Patriot League.
I note the front page because it was the first time Georgetown football had made it to C1 of the Post since Scotty Glacken was let go in 1993, and the Hoyas haven’t made the front page since. But it was a turning point for Georgetown’s football history and despite the losses which followed, it was a big change.
Difficult as it may be to some football fans today to conceive, Georgetown was a team on the rise in 1999. Coming off consecutive nine-win seasons, with its head coach pursued by Princeton for its vacant head coaching job, talk of a new stadium coming by, oh, 2003, and a team winning many of its conference games with relative ease (its final two games of the season were won by a combined score of 101-13), times were good for the Hoyas. But Bob Benson knew better, and he led the change for the Hoyas to apply to the Patriot League and leave the MAAC.
“The move to the Patriot League is an expensive one,” said Benson. “For Georgetown University to make this decision, the change must not only be a positive move for the football program, but for the entire university. There must be a vision! Our president, Father Leo O'Donovan , a great man and a true friend, had such a vision. It is really quite simple. Utilize the game of football to create an environment and atmosphere among our students, faculty, and community on an autumn Saturday afternoon and bring to our campus a school spirit on a fall day that is desperately needed.”
Because for all its MAAC success, Iona and Siena weren’t rivals for Georgetown, the Ivies were. But Ivy schools didn’t deign to play MAAC schools, and to get Georgetown on the Ivy radar screen, it needed a step up.
Georgetown wasn’t the first school grabbing a rowboat to leave the sinking MAAC but the most prominent. The league maintained a stand-pat policy in the intervening years, as six MAAC schools dropped the sport and left it with two remaining; Duquesne and Marist. (Of the original six schools in 1993, Georgetown is the only survivor.) However much of a beat-down the PL has become for Georgetown’s win-loss record, and it has, it prevented a much more ominous situation in the fracturing of its former conference.
No one, certainly not the perpetually optimistic Benson, could have quite foreseen what followed. Or maybe he did. After the Hoyas 2001 season opener, a 41-14 loss to Lehigh, a lot of us fans were not altogether disappointed—give Benson a couple of years worth of recruiting classes and Georgetown is going to start beating these teams, or so we thought. The look on Benson’s face that day suggested otherwise.
Absent a larger financial aid budget, Georgetown wasn’t going to out-recruit anyone and that dynamic hasn’t changed much in the last ten years. Georgetown, a welterweight champion in the MAAC, was fighting above its weight class and getting pounded every week for it. The budget didn’t grow significantly past 2004, the Multi-Sport Facility got no institutional traction, and in Benson’s last meeting at Hoyas Unlimited, he handed out copies of a newspaper article detailing how Lafayette was now recruiting alongside Richmond, and had plans to update the decaying Fisher Field. “This is what we’re up against,” he said.
“I covered their first game in the league back on Labor Day weekend of 2001,” said Allentown sports writer Keith Groller. “Lehigh beat them 41-14 that day in Washington and Georgetown talked about how far away they were from competing in the Patriot League. Eight seasons later and they're still far away.”
Ten years taught Georgetown a hard lesson about the cost of change. What will the next ten years bring?
For whatever fans say about it, the Patriot League has been a safe harbor for Georgetown’s football aspirations. It opened the door to Ivy league schools (in its first game in 2003, a 42-20 win over Cornell, albeit 10 straight losses since) and raised the talent level from what it could realistically reach as a MAAC school. But the upcoming questions facing the league over scholarships cast a shadow over its future; one, I would argue, has parallels to the choices made by the MAAC two decades earlier. Georgetown survived the 2000’s because it was a relatively strong program; by contrast, St. John’s and the MAAC brethren had no foundation from which to weather the storm. What do the 2010’s bring?
At a I-AA message board I frequent, I refer to it as the “lady or the tiger” scenario for the league in addressing Fordham’s "request" to convert its program from a PL-style non-scholarship arrangement to a full fledged 60 scholarship program beginning this season, with I-A opponents like Army and Connecticut on the Rams’ schedule within three years. Put aside the competitive question (e.g., if GU can’t beat Fordham now, how does it beat them with 60 scholarships?) and consider these four choices awaiting the PL presidents:
1. Reject Fordham’s scholarship demand and Fordham is gone, with no realistic replacements on the horizon and followed by rising fears that the league will become non-competitive.
2. Go full steam ahead on 60 scholarships and watch Georgetown and Bucknell instantly become non-competitive. The PL runs the risk that other teams will face potential Title IX impacts to scholarship funding and thus imperil the conference as a whole.
3. Let Fordham have its scholarships but no one else, a recipe for trouble down the road when Colgate and Lehigh want what Fordham has...and can’t get it.
4. Leave it to each school on its own to add as many scholarships as they choose, and invite an arms race among the schools. Four schools will have 50 or more scholarships, Bucknell will be two steps behind, and Georgetown will be at the back of the line, not unlike option 2 and not unlike where it stands today. But how do you grow a program (or build a stadium) going 1-10 every year and having your students and alumni grow accustomed to losing 52-7 every week?
Answer: you don’t. And that's a huge problem.
It’s much too simplistic to say that it’s a case of “reject scholarships and lose Fordham, add them and lose Georgetown.” Institutionally speaking, GU has no philosophical prohibition against scholarship athletics and I’m sure it could have some small number of grants available if it came to pass (emphasis on the phrase “small number”). It may be a more telling issue at places like Bucknell or Lafayette, or at a Holy Cross program whose abandonment of scholarships in the 1980’s opened a huge tear in that college’s athletic fabric. Is it still “Ivy lite” if the PL doesn’t play by the Ivy’s rules?
Whatever the outcome, something is coming. And history teaches that while you can’t always change an outcome, you can adapt to it, and in doing so Georgetown can be successful in these uncharted waters if it is prepared to make commitments to do so. It’s been said that it is not the strongest that survive, nor the most intelligent, but those most responsive to change.
Ten years from now, maybe Georgetown is the king of the Patriot League; maybe it’s sitting at 1-10 and wondering why the MSF never got built. But it has the opportunity to chart its own course: following the PL's lead, or finding other solutions which better meet its needs. Maybe that course keeps Georgetown in the PL in ten years, maybe it's a new conference option down the road with more like-minded programs.
The future of the Patriot League is changing, one way or another. And the year 2020 is now as close to Georgetown as the day it joined the league.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
A Rough Decade Remembered
How things change.
Ten years ago, Georgetown sat comfortably at the top of the still-fledgling metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, having defeted the final two opponents of the 1999 season by a combined 101-13. A 2000 schedule of eight MAAC opponents, Holy Cross, Davidson, anf Fordham followed.
Georgetown had other plans, however.
Three weeks into the new year of 2000, Georgetown announced an invitation to the Patriot League, beginning a new era on football at the Hilltop. Let's not kid anyone--the results weren't what we expected, but the alternative may have been even worse. Think about this: of the Hoyas' nine wins in 1999, seven were against teams which no longer exist. The collapse of the MAAC was imminent, and Georgetown had a lifeboat, even if it was way in the back.
As number go, the 2000s will go down as the poorest decade in Georgetown football: ten losing seasons, a combined 29-80 (.263), and a just awful 6-49 (.109) in league play. Kevin kelly ended his fourth season with a combined mark of 5-38, lowest of any fourth year coach in Division I.
Looking back on the decade, there are plenty of lowlights (yes, I actually got up at 1:00 am that Sunday to watch the tape delay of Lehigh's 49-0 halftime score to open the 2002 season, it finished 69-0), but there's one game this decade that stands out as a strange turning point for the decade.
On October 18, 2003, Georgetown faced an Ivy League opponent for the first time in 1937 at Cornell. Led with a great performance by senior WR Luke McArdle and a promising efort by freshman QB/RB Alondzo Turner, the Hoyas didn't just upset the Big Red, they beat them, 42-20. At that point, Georgetown was 11-17 over its two and one half years in the league. With a three game winning streak, it appeared to anyone who saw it that Georgetown had turned the corner. We were wrong.
One stat absolutely stuns me from that game. Following the Cornell game, Georgetown reentered PL play with a 3-8 league mark over the prior two seasons. In the intervening six years, the Hoyas are 3-36. Think about that.
However many the heartaches and plain old indigestion of the last ten seasons, there is an opportunity to review and recognize some of the best players of the past decade. For those students or young alumni who only know the last two years and haven't thought much of the talent on the field, know that there have been very good players that gave their all over the past ten years:
Glenn Castergine (TE, 2002,03,04,05): A two year starter at tight end, Castergine was efficient and effective in a position Georgetown has not always focused on.
Frank Terrazino (OL, 2001,02,03,04): A four year starter in a tough position. Got things donwe.
Liam Grubb (OL, 2003,04,05, 06): Maybe one of the best Georgetown linemen I've ever seen--hampered by injuries, Liam was an outstanding performer.
Dan Matheny (OL, 2006,07,08,09): A four year warrior.
Ryan Goethals (OL, 2001,02,03,04): A valuable four year starter that helped elevate the Georgetown running game when it needed it.
Ed Kuczma (OL, 1999,00,01,02): Along with Adam Rini, a consistent leader on the line in the years between the MAAC and PL.
Dave Paulus (QB/P, 2000,01,02,03); A nod ahead of Matt Bassuener (2004-07), Paulus was the best quarterback in a rough era for Georgetown QB's--he probably deserved more time from the coaches but when he was in the games, he made the most of it. Punting wise, he's probably the best punter of the modern era.
Gharun Hester (WR, 1997,98,99,00): An outstanding receiver who ended his career at the beginning of the decade, Hester is the school's all time leader in yards (3,089) and touchdowns (39).
Luke McArdle (WR, 2000,01,02,03): Maybe the best offensive performer of the decade, and the school's all-team leader in punt returns. Georgetown's first all-PL first team selection.
Kim Sarin (RB, 2002,03,04): Georgetown's first 1,000 yard rusher in a season since (maybe) John Gilroy in 1917, Sarin averaged 4.9 yards a carry over a three year career cut short by injury.
Charlie Houghton (RB, 2006,07,08,09): Largely a result of his rookie of the year season as a freshman, Houghton was a solid running back who injuries eventually overtook. Overall, though, the 2000's were not good years for a Georgetown rushing game that sank to the bottom of the subdivision.
Kyle Van Fleet (All-Purpose, 2004,05,06,07): Tight end, fullback, linebacker, whatever, Kyle would play anywhere the coaches asked and did all he could. His five touchdowns in 2007 led all teammates, and Van Fleet received the Duffey-Scholar Athlete Award for the season.
Kenny Mitchell (All-Purpose, 2005,06,07,08): My pick for the most underutilized talent of the decade--Mitchell could have been even better than Gharun Hester with his speed and agility, and was never a focal point of the Jim Miceli offense. His kick return numbers are in the record books but it could have been so much more.
To no surprise, the defensive picks are stronger across the board.
Michael Ononibaku (DL, 2002,03,04,05), Pound for pound, the best defender of the last 30 years. Georgetown's only All-America selection in the decade, this scholar-athlete and Duffey Award winner was a remarkable player in the Benson-era defensive sets.
Alex Buzbee (DL, 2003,04,05,06): Three inches taller and twenty pounds heavcier than Ononibaku, Buzbee leveraged a solid four career into a NFL roster spot in 2007, the first Hoya to do so since Jim Ricca in 1955. An All-PL selection as a senior, Buzbee finished third all time in sacks, one-half sack behind Ononibaku.
Ataefiok Etukeren (DL, 2005,06,07,08): A solid force on the defensive line with quickness and power, Etukeren made it to the last cut of the Buffalo Bills as a free agent signing in 2009.
Scott Pogorelec (DL, 1998,99,00,01): A four year mainstay on the early 2000's line, played nose guard with distinction despite being only 245 lbs.
Andrew Clarke (LB, 2000,01,02,03): Fourth all time in tackles, Clarke was a high school RB who became a defensive standout. His 119 tackles in 2002 is a single season record, with 23 tackles in a single game, also a record.
Jason Carter (LB, 2002,03,04,05); Despite weighing only 215, Carter was a strong tacker and defensive presence as a "rover" in the defensive sets. When there was a tackle to be made, he was there. Sixth all time in career tackles.
Matt Fronczke (DB, 2000,01,02,03): Third all time in tackles, one of GU's best secondary corps in a generation, a second team all-PL selection.
Maurice Banks (DB, 2002,03,04,05): A second team all-PL selection in 2004 and 2005, Banks was a solid secondary performer.
Travis Mack (DB, 2006,07,08,09): A strong three year leader on defense, placing third on the team in tackles with 66 in 2009 and 232 overall, fifth most in the modern era.
Derek Franks (DB, 2003,04,05,06): A three year starter, he finished with 75 tackles in his senior season.
Marc Samuel (PK, 2000,01): Kicking was very much a hit or miss (no pun intended) affair for the Hoyas in the decade, but the University of Kentucky transfer and GU Law student managed to finish in the top three for field goal and extra point accuracy over his two seasons.
As for the next decade, well, the losing must end. Either the coaches have to correct it, find someone who will, or Georgetown is going to be forced into reevaluating the commitment it puts into the Patriot League. This school's tradition and its program deserves a more competitive effort than what was seen in the 2000's, and that's not a knock on the players or the coaches who battled through it, but a call to action in the years to come.
Georgetown can do better, everyone knows that. It's time to start making it happen.
Ten years ago, Georgetown sat comfortably at the top of the still-fledgling metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, having defeted the final two opponents of the 1999 season by a combined 101-13. A 2000 schedule of eight MAAC opponents, Holy Cross, Davidson, anf Fordham followed.
Georgetown had other plans, however.
Three weeks into the new year of 2000, Georgetown announced an invitation to the Patriot League, beginning a new era on football at the Hilltop. Let's not kid anyone--the results weren't what we expected, but the alternative may have been even worse. Think about this: of the Hoyas' nine wins in 1999, seven were against teams which no longer exist. The collapse of the MAAC was imminent, and Georgetown had a lifeboat, even if it was way in the back.
As number go, the 2000s will go down as the poorest decade in Georgetown football: ten losing seasons, a combined 29-80 (.263), and a just awful 6-49 (.109) in league play. Kevin kelly ended his fourth season with a combined mark of 5-38, lowest of any fourth year coach in Division I.
Looking back on the decade, there are plenty of lowlights (yes, I actually got up at 1:00 am that Sunday to watch the tape delay of Lehigh's 49-0 halftime score to open the 2002 season, it finished 69-0), but there's one game this decade that stands out as a strange turning point for the decade.
On October 18, 2003, Georgetown faced an Ivy League opponent for the first time in 1937 at Cornell. Led with a great performance by senior WR Luke McArdle and a promising efort by freshman QB/RB Alondzo Turner, the Hoyas didn't just upset the Big Red, they beat them, 42-20. At that point, Georgetown was 11-17 over its two and one half years in the league. With a three game winning streak, it appeared to anyone who saw it that Georgetown had turned the corner. We were wrong.
One stat absolutely stuns me from that game. Following the Cornell game, Georgetown reentered PL play with a 3-8 league mark over the prior two seasons. In the intervening six years, the Hoyas are 3-36. Think about that.
However many the heartaches and plain old indigestion of the last ten seasons, there is an opportunity to review and recognize some of the best players of the past decade. For those students or young alumni who only know the last two years and haven't thought much of the talent on the field, know that there have been very good players that gave their all over the past ten years:
Glenn Castergine (TE, 2002,03,04,05): A two year starter at tight end, Castergine was efficient and effective in a position Georgetown has not always focused on.
Frank Terrazino (OL, 2001,02,03,04): A four year starter in a tough position. Got things donwe.
Liam Grubb (OL, 2003,04,05, 06): Maybe one of the best Georgetown linemen I've ever seen--hampered by injuries, Liam was an outstanding performer.
Dan Matheny (OL, 2006,07,08,09): A four year warrior.
Ryan Goethals (OL, 2001,02,03,04): A valuable four year starter that helped elevate the Georgetown running game when it needed it.
Ed Kuczma (OL, 1999,00,01,02): Along with Adam Rini, a consistent leader on the line in the years between the MAAC and PL.
Dave Paulus (QB/P, 2000,01,02,03); A nod ahead of Matt Bassuener (2004-07), Paulus was the best quarterback in a rough era for Georgetown QB's--he probably deserved more time from the coaches but when he was in the games, he made the most of it. Punting wise, he's probably the best punter of the modern era.
Gharun Hester (WR, 1997,98,99,00): An outstanding receiver who ended his career at the beginning of the decade, Hester is the school's all time leader in yards (3,089) and touchdowns (39).
Luke McArdle (WR, 2000,01,02,03): Maybe the best offensive performer of the decade, and the school's all-team leader in punt returns. Georgetown's first all-PL first team selection.
Kim Sarin (RB, 2002,03,04): Georgetown's first 1,000 yard rusher in a season since (maybe) John Gilroy in 1917, Sarin averaged 4.9 yards a carry over a three year career cut short by injury.
Charlie Houghton (RB, 2006,07,08,09): Largely a result of his rookie of the year season as a freshman, Houghton was a solid running back who injuries eventually overtook. Overall, though, the 2000's were not good years for a Georgetown rushing game that sank to the bottom of the subdivision.
Kyle Van Fleet (All-Purpose, 2004,05,06,07): Tight end, fullback, linebacker, whatever, Kyle would play anywhere the coaches asked and did all he could. His five touchdowns in 2007 led all teammates, and Van Fleet received the Duffey-Scholar Athlete Award for the season.
Kenny Mitchell (All-Purpose, 2005,06,07,08): My pick for the most underutilized talent of the decade--Mitchell could have been even better than Gharun Hester with his speed and agility, and was never a focal point of the Jim Miceli offense. His kick return numbers are in the record books but it could have been so much more.
To no surprise, the defensive picks are stronger across the board.
Michael Ononibaku (DL, 2002,03,04,05), Pound for pound, the best defender of the last 30 years. Georgetown's only All-America selection in the decade, this scholar-athlete and Duffey Award winner was a remarkable player in the Benson-era defensive sets.
Alex Buzbee (DL, 2003,04,05,06): Three inches taller and twenty pounds heavcier than Ononibaku, Buzbee leveraged a solid four career into a NFL roster spot in 2007, the first Hoya to do so since Jim Ricca in 1955. An All-PL selection as a senior, Buzbee finished third all time in sacks, one-half sack behind Ononibaku.
Ataefiok Etukeren (DL, 2005,06,07,08): A solid force on the defensive line with quickness and power, Etukeren made it to the last cut of the Buffalo Bills as a free agent signing in 2009.
Scott Pogorelec (DL, 1998,99,00,01): A four year mainstay on the early 2000's line, played nose guard with distinction despite being only 245 lbs.
Andrew Clarke (LB, 2000,01,02,03): Fourth all time in tackles, Clarke was a high school RB who became a defensive standout. His 119 tackles in 2002 is a single season record, with 23 tackles in a single game, also a record.
Jason Carter (LB, 2002,03,04,05); Despite weighing only 215, Carter was a strong tacker and defensive presence as a "rover" in the defensive sets. When there was a tackle to be made, he was there. Sixth all time in career tackles.
Matt Fronczke (DB, 2000,01,02,03): Third all time in tackles, one of GU's best secondary corps in a generation, a second team all-PL selection.
Maurice Banks (DB, 2002,03,04,05): A second team all-PL selection in 2004 and 2005, Banks was a solid secondary performer.
Travis Mack (DB, 2006,07,08,09): A strong three year leader on defense, placing third on the team in tackles with 66 in 2009 and 232 overall, fifth most in the modern era.
Derek Franks (DB, 2003,04,05,06): A three year starter, he finished with 75 tackles in his senior season.
Marc Samuel (PK, 2000,01): Kicking was very much a hit or miss (no pun intended) affair for the Hoyas in the decade, but the University of Kentucky transfer and GU Law student managed to finish in the top three for field goal and extra point accuracy over his two seasons.
As for the next decade, well, the losing must end. Either the coaches have to correct it, find someone who will, or Georgetown is going to be forced into reevaluating the commitment it puts into the Patriot League. This school's tradition and its program deserves a more competitive effort than what was seen in the 2000's, and that's not a knock on the players or the coaches who battled through it, but a call to action in the years to come.
Georgetown can do better, everyone knows that. It's time to start making it happen.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Acres of Diamonds
What's the worst thing about being an 0-11 team in November? Being one in December.
Back at the HoyaTalk message board, a familiar writer to the site suggests this: "I think Georgetown has 5-10 years left to prove to the community that there is still a place for football on the Hilltop. Otherwise, the program will keep falling down the slippery slope of doom, gloom, apathy, irrelevance, and embarrassment that this campus-wide joke has become."
The distinction between these two lines of thought is the difference between the word "won't" and "can't". The first writer thinks Georgetown won't remedy its situaiton, the second suggests it can't, which is a more serious contention; yet, I don't believe either.
But if you're under the age of 30, if you've never seen Georgetown written in an article that didn't involve a sports writer's tongue firmly in cheek, or if the only optimism you've seen on the program is that erstwhile New York Times feature on Bernard Muir and the future greatness of Hoya Football, one can be excused for being melancholy about the whole thing. Excused, but not absolved. Time to look forward.
So in this off-season, as the S.S. Georgetown is stuck on the shoals of college football, now is not the time to drop anchor, but get back out in the water.
Growing up in Texas, I got to follow some great college football...and some really awful football, too. Chief offenders of the latter were the Horned Frogs of Texas Christian University, who endured five winning seasons from 1966 to 1997 and were the source of many a joke in the rugged Southwest Conference.
Esteemed writer Dan Jenkins observed that "Fans in the stadium learned to cheer for first downs, to holler at the offense "Hold 'Em Frogs", and once, a large hand-made sign appeared in the student section proclaiming: "We're #115."
They played in a battered old stadium and their best days were behind them. Attendance was nominal, and recruits took notice. From 1974-78, the Frogs were 8-49, 2-36 in league play.
No one was trying to drum them out of the league or to drop football. But when the SWC met its demise and the big schools went elsewhere, TCU was left behind in a big way, and people got serious about what to do. The school reached out to local businessmen, the so-called "Committee of 100", to help reinvest local interest (and local dollars) into the program. Facility upgrades followed. Recruiting, still a second of third choice to Big 12 programs, began to pick up gems the big schools missed.
One of them was a running back from San Diego, and today his photo proudly stands at the entrance to its stadium, along with legends from days gone by:
And it was more than just players. TCU started hiring coaches that were good enough to be capable of being hired away elsewhere, and soon were (Pat Sullivan was nearly hired by LSU, Dennis Franchione by Alabama). Following Franchione's exit, the school promoted its defensive coordinator, Gary Patterson, and hasn't looked back. Over the past ten years, only Southern Cal has a better winning percentage among all Division I-A private schools than TCU. (Not even Notre Dame.) Patterson, thought to be in the running for the vacant ND job, just signed a contract extension. And why not? He's built something special.
Two weeks ago, TCU finished 12-0 with a thorough pounding of New Mexico, 51-10 and stands waiting for a BCS bowl. A generation ago, no, a decade ago, this would have been unthinkable. TCU was the Temple of Southwestern football (and look at Temple these days!)
What changed? What got these stands filled time and time again in a region full of Longhorn and Aggie fans?
What got a student body not much larger than Georgetown to fill these stands?
In 1890, a Baptist educator named Russell Conwell toured the countryside telling a story, considered one of the most memorable speeches of the 19th century. Royalties from the speech made him enough money to fund a struggling Baptist school in Philadelphia he called Temple University, and to this day it remains a hallmark among motivational speakers. Known as the "Acres of Diamonds" speech, it carried a simple message--before one goes searching the world for success, take stock of what one has right now, and start using those resources to build wealth.
Wrote Rev. Conwell: "Greatness consists not in holding some office; greatness really consists in doing some great deed with little means, in the accomplishment of vast purposes from the private ranks of life, that is true greatness."
It was true in Conwell's time, as he built Temple into a major research university.
It was true for TCU, as they have built a major college program from the wreckage of years of futility.
Most importantly (for this column), it is true for Georgetown. But first it's got to work at it.
We bemoan (and I am sometimes guilty of same) that Georgetown doesn't have the tools it takes to compete. Not to compete in the Big East, of course, but even among smaller private schools. And yet, look around and see the diamonds on the fringe of that forsaken field called the MSF:
And look around! Look at the diamonds in its midst! This is a University that can certainly compete and win at the Division I-AA level and bring honor and distinction to its legacy. One doesn't have to go to a BCS bowl to do it, either. Georgetown has resources at its disposal Northeastern never had, and Hofstra never will! But first it's got to work at it.
The basketball folks like to say we are Georgetown, and so "we" are. But if Georgetown can excel with honor in basketball, in track, in lacrosse, rowing, sailing, et al., it can do the same in football, I'm convinced of it. That its own students (much less alumni and Internet message boards) haven't heard that message is a problem in need of solving.
It won't be easy, but that's not the issue.
"Difficulty," wrote Edward R. Murrow, "is the excuse history never accepts."
The last week or so has seen an outpouring of Internet grumbling over the winless Hoyas, who commanded little or no media attention in their weekly losses but seems to have become a point of discussion following the euthanasia of programs at Northeastern and Hofstra. Bad teams are supposed to clean house the weekend after the season finale, right?
"The alarming thing about Georgetown is they're doing nothing to fix their situation," writes one posted on a I-AA message board. "They haven't fired their coach and they've made no progress in updating their facilities. The fact that the coach has remained is the most curious of all imo. The program has hit rock bottom, shows no signs of life yet the course looks to continue. What's the point?"Back at the HoyaTalk message board, a familiar writer to the site suggests this: "I think Georgetown has 5-10 years left to prove to the community that there is still a place for football on the Hilltop. Otherwise, the program will keep falling down the slippery slope of doom, gloom, apathy, irrelevance, and embarrassment that this campus-wide joke has become."
The distinction between these two lines of thought is the difference between the word "won't" and "can't". The first writer thinks Georgetown won't remedy its situaiton, the second suggests it can't, which is a more serious contention; yet, I don't believe either.
But if you're under the age of 30, if you've never seen Georgetown written in an article that didn't involve a sports writer's tongue firmly in cheek, or if the only optimism you've seen on the program is that erstwhile New York Times feature on Bernard Muir and the future greatness of Hoya Football, one can be excused for being melancholy about the whole thing. Excused, but not absolved. Time to look forward.
So in this off-season, as the S.S. Georgetown is stuck on the shoals of college football, now is not the time to drop anchor, but get back out in the water.
Growing up in Texas, I got to follow some great college football...and some really awful football, too. Chief offenders of the latter were the Horned Frogs of Texas Christian University, who endured five winning seasons from 1966 to 1997 and were the source of many a joke in the rugged Southwest Conference.
Esteemed writer Dan Jenkins observed that "Fans in the stadium learned to cheer for first downs, to holler at the offense "Hold 'Em Frogs", and once, a large hand-made sign appeared in the student section proclaiming: "We're #115."
They played in a battered old stadium and their best days were behind them. Attendance was nominal, and recruits took notice. From 1974-78, the Frogs were 8-49, 2-36 in league play.
No one was trying to drum them out of the league or to drop football. But when the SWC met its demise and the big schools went elsewhere, TCU was left behind in a big way, and people got serious about what to do. The school reached out to local businessmen, the so-called "Committee of 100", to help reinvest local interest (and local dollars) into the program. Facility upgrades followed. Recruiting, still a second of third choice to Big 12 programs, began to pick up gems the big schools missed.
One of them was a running back from San Diego, and today his photo proudly stands at the entrance to its stadium, along with legends from days gone by:
And it was more than just players. TCU started hiring coaches that were good enough to be capable of being hired away elsewhere, and soon were (Pat Sullivan was nearly hired by LSU, Dennis Franchione by Alabama). Following Franchione's exit, the school promoted its defensive coordinator, Gary Patterson, and hasn't looked back. Over the past ten years, only Southern Cal has a better winning percentage among all Division I-A private schools than TCU. (Not even Notre Dame.) Patterson, thought to be in the running for the vacant ND job, just signed a contract extension. And why not? He's built something special.
Two weeks ago, TCU finished 12-0 with a thorough pounding of New Mexico, 51-10 and stands waiting for a BCS bowl. A generation ago, no, a decade ago, this would have been unthinkable. TCU was the Temple of Southwestern football (and look at Temple these days!)
What changed? What got these stands filled time and time again in a region full of Longhorn and Aggie fans?
What got hundreds of children to line up before the game to "run" with their home town team?
Because TCU has discovered a truism that Georgetown hasn't: you don't need to look far to build a base of support. But first you've got to work at it.
In 1890, a Baptist educator named Russell Conwell toured the countryside telling a story, considered one of the most memorable speeches of the 19th century. Royalties from the speech made him enough money to fund a struggling Baptist school in Philadelphia he called Temple University, and to this day it remains a hallmark among motivational speakers. Known as the "Acres of Diamonds" speech, it carried a simple message--before one goes searching the world for success, take stock of what one has right now, and start using those resources to build wealth.
Wrote Rev. Conwell: "Greatness consists not in holding some office; greatness really consists in doing some great deed with little means, in the accomplishment of vast purposes from the private ranks of life, that is true greatness."
It was true in Conwell's time, as he built Temple into a major research university.
It was true for TCU, as they have built a major college program from the wreckage of years of futility.
Most importantly (for this column), it is true for Georgetown. But first it's got to work at it.
We bemoan (and I am sometimes guilty of same) that Georgetown doesn't have the tools it takes to compete. Not to compete in the Big East, of course, but even among smaller private schools. And yet, look around and see the diamonds on the fringe of that forsaken field called the MSF:
- This is a University that provides educational opportunities unmatched by any Catholic school in the nation, a peer with the major research universities of the nation.
- This is a University that can recruit, educate, and graduate a cross section of conscientious leaders from its football program for generations to come, whether they be CEO's, field generals, or college presidents.
- This is a school whose contacts provide its football student-athletes significant internship and networking opportunities for careers that will exceed their expectations and open doors that will change their lives and the lives of others.
- This is a University with a vast network of alumni that have played football for the school, willing and able to devote resources towards student support, facility improvement, and coaching development.
- This is a University whose representatives can walk in to a recruit's home anywhere in the nation and tell its story.
- This is a University fully capable of attracting outstanding student-athletes, near as well as far, who can compete at a designated level and provide its students and alumni success on and off the field of play, with or without the comforts that other schools may enjoy.
- This is a University with a proud football tradition dating back to the very origins of the sport, with a long-term record of competitive success that ought to be cherished and embraced rather than ignored and minimized.
And look around! Look at the diamonds in its midst! This is a University that can certainly compete and win at the Division I-AA level and bring honor and distinction to its legacy. One doesn't have to go to a BCS bowl to do it, either. Georgetown has resources at its disposal Northeastern never had, and Hofstra never will! But first it's got to work at it.
The basketball folks like to say we are Georgetown, and so "we" are. But if Georgetown can excel with honor in basketball, in track, in lacrosse, rowing, sailing, et al., it can do the same in football, I'm convinced of it. That its own students (much less alumni and Internet message boards) haven't heard that message is a problem in need of solving.
It won't be easy, but that's not the issue.
"Difficulty," wrote Edward R. Murrow, "is the excuse history never accepts."
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