Dear Georgetown Students:
As you are no doubt aware, your University is always busy with acronyms and slogans. For every ICC, SFS, or GUASFCU out there, so too the slogans: cura personalis, interreligious understanding, community in diversity. As to the latter, I would suggest that a community is not defined simply by being diverse, however one defines it, but a true community is that where people gather and celebrate each other's accomplishments.
The next few days offer two opportunities to do just that, and it's something that has been frankly missing around the place in recent years.
Being a student in 2024 isn't what it was in your parents years, and that's not your fault. While an 18 or 19 year old of days gone by could celebrate the Hoyas winning an NCAA championship or marching en masse to Wisconsin and M when the Redskins won a Super Bowl, that's not the Georgetown you've been a part of. The COVID years and its aftermath have made large group gatherings less common, not as much for health reasons but that it isn't what people do as much now.
If your candidate happens to win the general election next week, well, you have every right to march triumphantly to the White House as countless other eras of Hoyas have done, back when political parties respected each other and being a D or an R was simply how you voted, not your tribe. But many will keep to themselves and trade thoughts over their phones.
As this is a sports column, let me draw your attention to two upcoming activities worth your collective time and interest.
Saturday, Georgetown hosts Lehigh for a football game with some consequence. A win puts Georgetown two games from its first NCAA "tournament" appearance in football (otherwise called the playoffs) in school history, and marks its first winning season in 13 years. Yes, here are a lot of students who look down on football for not being good, when most don't know why that's the case. Without a history lesson, Georgetown University doesn't want to spend the money on football other schools do, and as such the team can struggle against schools with more resources. That doesn't make those players, your fellow students, any less committed to playing and winning--not for a scholarship or NIL money, but simply for being a team that wears the blue and gray, as students have done, more or less, for 150 years.
Some students will tell you that football is not for "smart" schools. Ask your friends at Duke what it was like beating Clemson at home on national television. Ask your friends at Vanderbilt what it was like beating Alabama and carrying goalposts down Broadway en route to tossing them in the Cumberland River. These were not only great moments for the teams, but seminal moments for the student body, memories for a lifetime.
No one is suggesting you to take the goalposts and deposit them in the Potomac, inasmuch as there is still one more home game. What is suggested is that you take the opportunity for you, your dorm floor, your housemates, to show up at Cooper Field at 12:30 Saturday and give them sixty minutes of support en route to a successful season against a team that has more resources than Georgetown and usually wins as a result. You can cheer, shout, sing, bang your shoes on the bleachers, do whatever, but your fellow students could use the support.
Four days later, another group of students welcomes your support as the men's and women's basketball team play in the first on-campus doubleheader in 20 years. Much has changed, unfortunately, in the intervening years, and while you are at Georgetown at the low point of college basketball on this campus, it doesn't mean you can't give these students the support needed to take the next step forward.
Yes, we get it. You won't have any memories of going to a Final Four, or that the President and Vice President shows up for a game one afternoon. Students are not going to march across downtown in the snow to defeat the #2 team in the nation. This is not the Georgetown of 10, 20, or more years ago. The steps forward begin this week, and playing on campus is a rare opportunity to skip the buses and the Ubers to soulless Capital One Arena for a walk down the hill to where basketball once meant a lot in the life of a Georgetown student.
Support is lacking for these teams because there's a lot going on and, well, losing basketball games isn't fun. It's no fun for those that compete, either. It's no secret why a lot of names and faces from the last couple years aren't around campus anymore, but those that remain and 12 newcomers are less interested in past history and eager to begin some new history. Your support, for the men and women's, helps Georgetown begin the process of getting out of a ditch and take the steps necessary to remind people why Georgetown plays the game.
In the end, going to a game should be about fun. The world is a serious place and none moreso than Georgetown, where half the student body expects to solve the world's problems and the other half are worried they won't get the right job in New York. It won't hurt you to enjoy a sunny, 60 degree day at Cooper Field for a few hours, tell a few stories, and maybe see some really good football. Neither will these vagaries hold it against you if you put the cell phone down and see a basketball game from up close up, and leave the electoral minutiae for a couple of hours.
Years from now, you won't remember how many hours you spend in the library or how often you checked your Instagram. Sometimes, it's as simple as remembering where you were and who you were with, and this week is a great time to do both.
Together.
