With the announcement of Lee Reed as Georgetown's new athletic director, there are probably as many questions from the rank and file Hoya fan as any newcomer to the process. But when Wednesday's press conference opened the floor to questions at Riggs Library, only two questions were proferred.
Liz Clarke of the Washington Post asked about the oft-discussed but never funded training/practice facility. Reed's response was equal parts the response of a newcomer and one who wisely knows this issue has traction farther up the hill.
"Obviously a facility that will enhance practice opportunities for our student-athletes is something that is of importance," said Reed . " I need to get here and understand all that has gone on until this point to see where the plan is. I’ve heard about it. I’m excited about it, but there are so many other things that the university has that have put our coaches and student-athletes in a great place. That will be another piece, and that will be a critical piece. I’ll work with our senior management team and the fundraisers in our athletics program and advancement to move forward on raising the money that is necessary to build that facility. So yes, it is critical to us. I’m part of the team. I’m here to join the team and do what I can to bring the resources to our student-athletes and our coaches, as it relates to facilities and other areas."
Put another way, the ball's not in his court.
The second question came from Kevin Wessel of The HOYA, and among all the issues of interest to students today, from the shoddy condition of Kehoe Field to the growth of women's sports to better transportation to Verizon Center, his question was on a topic of no small frustration among the student body--the condition of the football program.
Reed's response did not sound like he was passing the buck upstairs.
"I’m aware of where the [Georgetown] football program is. I can’t wait to sit down with the coaching staff to kind of see where they are. I know it’s important to this community, so we’ll work with our coaching staff and we’ll work with the staff in place now to see what’s going on with the program."
One of the undercurrents to the 2010 off-season is the role of the athletic director in what is an uncomfortable topic: a 5-38 record since 2006. Other than Dartmouth and Indiana State, it's practically at the bottom of Division I. The coaching staff knows it is in a vulnerable place after last season, and it's clear football was a topic of discussion at Reed's interviews.
But Wessel's question only touched on a growing sense of anger by students that the program is in the ditch. No one walks in the door at Georgetown expecting to play Syracuse and West Virginia on a September afternoon, but a non-competitive program in an unfinished field lends itself to apathy and worse. The first year of the new director's role will be to get a sense of the hierarchy of sports at Georgetown, and where football fits into the firmament. A student body that slips from apathy to disinterest is bad for any sport. With spiraling costs and conference realignments forming a veritable scylla-and-charybdis for athletic departments over the next decade, increased support for any support outside basketball cannot be taken for granted.
A new voice in the athletic department offers a new opportunity for the football program to define itself and to assert its place in the fabric of campus and community life. Much of the last decade of GU football has been patterned on the sales pitch Bob Benson made to join the Patriot League in 2000, but it's now 2010 and if Georgetown wants to be something fundamentally better than what it is now in the next five or ten years, it needs vision, direction and support. The coaches will do their part, but it may be time for a largely silent group of alumni and donors to come to the forefront.
Since 1964, there are 125 living alumni who have served as a captain or co-captain for the football team. Doctors, attorneys, executives, a few coaches-- all sorts of men whose leadership skills on the field prepared them for leadership experiences off the field. As the new athletic director reviews and reshapes the department to which he has been entrusted, this is the group of volunteer leaders that need to be a visible, vocal, and volunteer-minded consituency that can show Reed and others that football is an asset on this campus, and as Georgetown considers growing the program, that it is an investment worth making, not merely a risk worth taking.
Some of these captains have been important volunteers and contributors in recent years, particularly among the club football era teams. Others, sadly, seem to have disappeared off the media guide. When DeGioia, Porterfield, Reed, et al. review the issues on the near-term plate for Georgetown football (from building the MSF to reacting to Patriot League scholarships), there needs to be a core leadership group among alumni ready to make the calls, twist the elbows, and fight for the program they helped build. These leaders of the past are a source of leadership for tomorrow.
And guess what? Tomorrow's here.
Let's move forward on reviving these ties among the football community. There are stories across the football landscape of key alumni and former captains coming through when a sluggish or faltering program most needed it; conversely, the I-AA graveyard is littered with alumni that could never quite get its act together when opportunity called and wondered what might have been. Let's welcome these captains back into the fold and get them back on the front lines to build Georgetown football for the next decade.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Here's Your MSF
Yes, I still have the t-shirt. No, I'm not going to wear it at John Carroll Weekend.
On a cold and rainy Saturday not that long ago, I found my way across a mud-filled Harbin Field to a tent filled with alumni, parents, and assorted development officials. Speeches were made, shovels were cast into the dirt, and celebratory t-shirts were handed out. It read:
That remark--and that t-shirt-- are reminders to me that not much changed since those shovels turned the dirt on Harbin Field five years ago, and we're all the lesser for it.
"The Field With No Name" has become a sad monument to Georgetown Football, from the temporary seats (that were being finished the morning of the home opener with Brown) that never went away, to the sand that piles up on its fringes from other construction projects more favorably blessed in the University's capital budget. The message this project has sent to prospective students and prospective opponents is an exceedingly poor one--it's the academic equivalent of setting up trailers on Healy Lawn and telling people that this is the library until we get the real one built.
A Google search brings up all kinds of old articles about the place, some official, some less so. "The proposed design will feature permanent spectator seating for 4,652, a two-story press box with VIP seating, sports lighting and sound system, a digital video screen and scoreboard," reads GUHoyas.com.
"Freshmen expect the typical autumn football experience, where you go watch your team win on Saturday, and that hasn’t happened,” GUSA president Ben Shaw told the New York Times. “But at the same time, no one wants football eliminated. We just want it to get better. But people are waiting and wondering. The Multi-Sport Field," he said, "is a metaphor for where things stand at Georgetown."
"The present hiatus in the construction process — albeit brief, we’re sure — will minimize interference with game schedules and allow more time for fundraising efforts," wote the HOYA in 2005. "The stadium, with seating for 4,500, will guarantee enough room for every Hoya fan. New locker rooms, videoconference rooms and a training facility will be housed within the stadium itself."
"Students, faculty, administrators and alumni — and hopefully local community members — agree that the future of Georgetown relies on the betterment of existing programs. That future starts right now."
Or not.
And yet, two hours south of campus, there is a construction project that bears more than a passing resemblance to the MSF, in form as well as function. Welcome To the University of Richmond.
There are numerous photo galleries available on the project, which began in 2006 after the University received approval from the City of Richmond to leave city-owned UR Stadium (capacity, 21,750) to renovate its track stadium (First Market Stadium) and build an on-campus facility of about 7,800 seats by the 2009 season.
"The expanded Robins Stadium will be a permanent multi-sport venue [emphasis added] serving the University's football, lacrosse, soccer and track programs," writes a UR fact sheet. "The current off-campus facility used for home football games...is outdated and does not meet the needs of our growing football program in 2008....The Robins Stadium expansion has been carefully planned to minimize impact on the surrounding communities, and to further enhance the University's national reputation for having one of the most beautiful campuses in America."
Beginning this fall, UR students and fans will experience an on campus facility that provides year-round use for teams, coaches offices, concesssions, box seating, and modern scoreboard amenities. In a nod to student versus alumni seating patterns, the lower level of seating is reserved for students but built so that if students want to stand, it doesn't block the more sedentary fans above them. It will not be the biggest facility in its conference, but serve as a showplace to the program and a source of campus pride among the university and its community.
This is not to say that the Richmond project enjoyed smooth sailing--progress stalled in 2008 until the Robins family, stalwart supporters of that university, agreed to fund the remainder of the project to see it to conclusion, with the new facility opening in 2010, a year behind original plans. Ironically, Georgetown was scheduled to be among the first opponents to play in Robins Stadium before the parties cancelled the series late last year. Who will be the first opponents in a completed Multi-Sport Facility, no one knows.
And while one can make a case that a smaller school like Richmond has more major donors at its disposal than Georgetown does (a dubious argument, but one nonetheless), Robins Stadium is under construction now because it is a priority--not just for UR Football, but for the university as a whole. Richmond could have easily moved the football program on campus and put up temporary bleachers and be done with it, but at what price, and at what cost? Never mind what it will do to the fan experience and recruiting (two things sorely lacking at Georgetown in its current setup), Robins Stadium will be a visible statement that UR is committed to doing what is right for its campus and for its students.
Few great universities would put up a temporary building, do nothing with it for five years and be satisfied with it. Georgetown would not have considered putting up temporary housing in the New South parking lot and calling it the Southwest Quadrangle. It would not have considered knocking out some drywall in the Ryan Administration building and hand it over to the fine arts department as its new facility. But five years later, where is the person that works outside McDonough Gym that sees this monument to institutional inertia and expects something better?
Well, Dan Porterfield does, but few others have said as much publicly.
"It is crucial that we complete the Multi-Sport Field," Porterfield wrote seven months ago in September, the last official mention of the project. "Our goals will stay the same: To improve our teams' game-day experience, to make the venue more fan-friendly, and to construct an aesthetically pleasing facility. As we develop new options for this important project in the coming months, we look forward to sharing its details with our friends and donors."
The question is not what what happeed over the last seven months or the last five years, but when there will be a visible and tangible move forward for the student, alumni, and donor community--not talk, not shovels, but actual construction. (As a point of disclosure, I'm one of these donors, albeit a meager one. In the early part of this decade, I made the largest gift to GU I had made to date, $1,000, to buy the equivalent of a seat in the new MSF that was to open in 2003, then 2005, then....well, whenever. In the intervening years, I've never received correspondence from University Development as to what my $1,000 bought, if they want a second gift out of me, or even if there'll be a "seat" after all.) The diminished returns for Hoya football in the Kevin Kelly era coupled with fading aspirations for the true promise of what a new facility can mean-- not just to Georgetown athletically but holistically-- may leave some bureaucrat to ask why it can't just be left as it is now, with a few pieces of wood here and some more gravel there, and spend the money on something else.
What was true in 2005 is true in 2010: "The worst thing that can happen is for people to be content with what they have right now."
And five years later, there's far too much contentment going around. Maybe I'll pack the t-shirt after all.
On a cold and rainy Saturday not that long ago, I found my way across a mud-filled Harbin Field to a tent filled with alumni, parents, and assorted development officials. Speeches were made, shovels were cast into the dirt, and celebratory t-shirts were handed out. It read:
MULTI-SPORT FACILTY GROUNDBREAKING: APRIL 30, 2005
What I most remember wasn't the speeches or the plaudits, but one single remark. I forget to this day who said it to me, albeit in passing, but I remember the message, endemic of what this project has become. "The worst thing that can happen," he said, "is for people to be content with what they have right now."
That remark--and that t-shirt-- are reminders to me that not much changed since those shovels turned the dirt on Harbin Field five years ago, and we're all the lesser for it.
"The Field With No Name" has become a sad monument to Georgetown Football, from the temporary seats (that were being finished the morning of the home opener with Brown) that never went away, to the sand that piles up on its fringes from other construction projects more favorably blessed in the University's capital budget. The message this project has sent to prospective students and prospective opponents is an exceedingly poor one--it's the academic equivalent of setting up trailers on Healy Lawn and telling people that this is the library until we get the real one built.
A Google search brings up all kinds of old articles about the place, some official, some less so. "The proposed design will feature permanent spectator seating for 4,652, a two-story press box with VIP seating, sports lighting and sound system, a digital video screen and scoreboard," reads GUHoyas.com.
"Freshmen expect the typical autumn football experience, where you go watch your team win on Saturday, and that hasn’t happened,” GUSA president Ben Shaw told the New York Times. “But at the same time, no one wants football eliminated. We just want it to get better. But people are waiting and wondering. The Multi-Sport Field," he said, "is a metaphor for where things stand at Georgetown."
"The present hiatus in the construction process — albeit brief, we’re sure — will minimize interference with game schedules and allow more time for fundraising efforts," wote the HOYA in 2005. "The stadium, with seating for 4,500, will guarantee enough room for every Hoya fan. New locker rooms, videoconference rooms and a training facility will be housed within the stadium itself."
"Students, faculty, administrators and alumni — and hopefully local community members — agree that the future of Georgetown relies on the betterment of existing programs. That future starts right now."
Or not.
And yet, two hours south of campus, there is a construction project that bears more than a passing resemblance to the MSF, in form as well as function. Welcome To the University of Richmond.
There are numerous photo galleries available on the project, which began in 2006 after the University received approval from the City of Richmond to leave city-owned UR Stadium (capacity, 21,750) to renovate its track stadium (First Market Stadium) and build an on-campus facility of about 7,800 seats by the 2009 season.
"The expanded Robins Stadium will be a permanent multi-sport venue [emphasis added] serving the University's football, lacrosse, soccer and track programs," writes a UR fact sheet. "The current off-campus facility used for home football games...is outdated and does not meet the needs of our growing football program in 2008....The Robins Stadium expansion has been carefully planned to minimize impact on the surrounding communities, and to further enhance the University's national reputation for having one of the most beautiful campuses in America."
Beginning this fall, UR students and fans will experience an on campus facility that provides year-round use for teams, coaches offices, concesssions, box seating, and modern scoreboard amenities. In a nod to student versus alumni seating patterns, the lower level of seating is reserved for students but built so that if students want to stand, it doesn't block the more sedentary fans above them. It will not be the biggest facility in its conference, but serve as a showplace to the program and a source of campus pride among the university and its community.
This is not to say that the Richmond project enjoyed smooth sailing--progress stalled in 2008 until the Robins family, stalwart supporters of that university, agreed to fund the remainder of the project to see it to conclusion, with the new facility opening in 2010, a year behind original plans. Ironically, Georgetown was scheduled to be among the first opponents to play in Robins Stadium before the parties cancelled the series late last year. Who will be the first opponents in a completed Multi-Sport Facility, no one knows.
And while one can make a case that a smaller school like Richmond has more major donors at its disposal than Georgetown does (a dubious argument, but one nonetheless), Robins Stadium is under construction now because it is a priority--not just for UR Football, but for the university as a whole. Richmond could have easily moved the football program on campus and put up temporary bleachers and be done with it, but at what price, and at what cost? Never mind what it will do to the fan experience and recruiting (two things sorely lacking at Georgetown in its current setup), Robins Stadium will be a visible statement that UR is committed to doing what is right for its campus and for its students.
Few great universities would put up a temporary building, do nothing with it for five years and be satisfied with it. Georgetown would not have considered putting up temporary housing in the New South parking lot and calling it the Southwest Quadrangle. It would not have considered knocking out some drywall in the Ryan Administration building and hand it over to the fine arts department as its new facility. But five years later, where is the person that works outside McDonough Gym that sees this monument to institutional inertia and expects something better?
Well, Dan Porterfield does, but few others have said as much publicly.
"It is crucial that we complete the Multi-Sport Field," Porterfield wrote seven months ago in September, the last official mention of the project. "Our goals will stay the same: To improve our teams' game-day experience, to make the venue more fan-friendly, and to construct an aesthetically pleasing facility. As we develop new options for this important project in the coming months, we look forward to sharing its details with our friends and donors."
The question is not what what happeed over the last seven months or the last five years, but when there will be a visible and tangible move forward for the student, alumni, and donor community--not talk, not shovels, but actual construction. (As a point of disclosure, I'm one of these donors, albeit a meager one. In the early part of this decade, I made the largest gift to GU I had made to date, $1,000, to buy the equivalent of a seat in the new MSF that was to open in 2003, then 2005, then....well, whenever. In the intervening years, I've never received correspondence from University Development as to what my $1,000 bought, if they want a second gift out of me, or even if there'll be a "seat" after all.) The diminished returns for Hoya football in the Kevin Kelly era coupled with fading aspirations for the true promise of what a new facility can mean-- not just to Georgetown athletically but holistically-- may leave some bureaucrat to ask why it can't just be left as it is now, with a few pieces of wood here and some more gravel there, and spend the money on something else.
What was true in 2005 is true in 2010: "The worst thing that can happen is for people to be content with what they have right now."
And five years later, there's far too much contentment going around. Maybe I'll pack the t-shirt after all.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Coming Attractions
Bill Parcells' caution to coaches is part of the football lexicon: "You are," he said, "what your record says you are."
But a corollary to the Parcells Principle might just as well be: "You are what your schedule says you are." So if people are surprised that the 2010 football schedule looks like something out of 2000 rather than 2009, maybe they shouldn't be. It is Kevin Kelly's best chance yet to turn back the clock and turn around the record.
Georgetown played three scholarship teams in 2009, and lost all three. The 14-11 loss to Howard was a winnable game, but a tragedy of errors on both sides, and if Howard acted to end the erstwhile D.C. Cup, it was not for enmity of Georgetown, but to wash its hands of a series that seemed to bring little out on either side.
In contrast to Howard, the ending to the Georgetown-Richmond series was not unexpected. Conceived in more hopeful days when Bob Benson saw Georgetown as a legitimate contender by the end of the decade, the Hoyas caught the Spiders ascendant while its fortunes had fallen. The Hoyas turned the ball over in each of its first three possessions in last seasons game and the 49-10 finish was only due to the generosity of UR coach Mike London.
The Hoyas' 31-10 loss to Old Dominion was more problematic. Playing a first year team, one that had lost to Monmouth and Fordham earlier in the year, Georgetown was embarassed to the point that the Monarchs called off the dogs in the second quarter, up 28-3. ODU was getting better every week, Georgetown wasn't, and it showed. By 2010, ODU didn't need Georgetown anymore, and waived a chance at potentially three more wins through 2012 to further upgrade its schedule.
No one will be surprised in a few years when London, now coach at Virginia, will make a call to ODU's Bobby Wilder to have Old Dominion open the season at Charlottesville. That call will most certainly not come to Kevin Kelly and Georgetown.
But however painful the outcomes, these games showed the ability of Georgetown to at least aim higher than from where it was. There was no shame in losing to the I-AA national champion, at least in comparison to lose to Marist. And had it added North Dakota State, a likely loss with a guarantee fee, at least you could say the Hoyas were "playing up" against someone on its non-conference schedule. There's no "playing up" like that in 2010.
The Hoyas have traded in Howard, Richmond, and Old Dominion (combined 2009 record: 22-13) for Davidson, Sacred Heart and Wagner (combined 2009 record: 11-20). So long, Foreman Field (capacity 19,782), hello Campus Field (capacity 2,000). And outside of a few misguided folks like me that would still rather see 12,000 in the stands at Villanova on the schedule than 1,500 at Sacred Heart, you can look at the Hoyas' record over these past four years and ask, well, maybe this is all they can handle right now.
And that's what it's come to.
The web site known as the College Football Data Warehouse studied the records of 238 Division I teams over the last ten seasons, ranking Georgetown 232nd in win-loss record and 232nd in strength of schedule. (Wagner and Sacred Heart ranked 234th and 235th, respectively, but such is the fate of low-scholarship football.) And maybe it's fortunate Georgetown was able to pick up these games at such a late date, because universities like GU cannot long tolerate the recent seasons that erode more than Kevin Kelly's record, but his standing at the University.
I mentioned the 2000 schedule, the interregnum between the soft success of the MAAC and the harder ground of the Patriot. Georgetown's schedule that year was a hodge-podge of opponents: five MAAC teams (Duquesne, Marist, and defunct programs at Fairfield,. Iona, St. Peter's), three Patriot teams (Holy Cross, Fordham, and Bucknell), two Pioneer (Davidson, Butler), and one Northeast Conference team (Wagner). The Hoyas finished 0-3 against the Patriot, and 5-3 against everyone else. If the Hoyas could carve out a winning record like that against Yale, Davidson, Wagner, Sacred Heart, and Marist, well...it's not much but it's a start. The problem is, of course, that this is the kind of schedule better suited for 2000 than 2010, and really doesn't prepare the Hoyas for a move up the PL standings. After ten years, the Hoyas seem no more capable of dominating conference opponents than it was in 2000.
But the contrary scenario isn't a pretty one, either: if Georgetown can't win against these five schools (combined 2009 record: 22-30), then what does it say? Excepting I-AA newcomers Campbell and Old Dominion, Georgetown is among seven low-rated I-AA schools (Columbia, Dartmouth, Indiana State, Savannah State, Southern Utah, and St. Francis) with a combined record of 57-241 (.191) over the past four seasons. For these schools to get out of their mess, they must start winning, plain and simple.
So sometimes a step back allows you a few steps forward.
.
But a corollary to the Parcells Principle might just as well be: "You are what your schedule says you are." So if people are surprised that the 2010 football schedule looks like something out of 2000 rather than 2009, maybe they shouldn't be. It is Kevin Kelly's best chance yet to turn back the clock and turn around the record.
Georgetown played three scholarship teams in 2009, and lost all three. The 14-11 loss to Howard was a winnable game, but a tragedy of errors on both sides, and if Howard acted to end the erstwhile D.C. Cup, it was not for enmity of Georgetown, but to wash its hands of a series that seemed to bring little out on either side.
In contrast to Howard, the ending to the Georgetown-Richmond series was not unexpected. Conceived in more hopeful days when Bob Benson saw Georgetown as a legitimate contender by the end of the decade, the Hoyas caught the Spiders ascendant while its fortunes had fallen. The Hoyas turned the ball over in each of its first three possessions in last seasons game and the 49-10 finish was only due to the generosity of UR coach Mike London.
The Hoyas' 31-10 loss to Old Dominion was more problematic. Playing a first year team, one that had lost to Monmouth and Fordham earlier in the year, Georgetown was embarassed to the point that the Monarchs called off the dogs in the second quarter, up 28-3. ODU was getting better every week, Georgetown wasn't, and it showed. By 2010, ODU didn't need Georgetown anymore, and waived a chance at potentially three more wins through 2012 to further upgrade its schedule.
No one will be surprised in a few years when London, now coach at Virginia, will make a call to ODU's Bobby Wilder to have Old Dominion open the season at Charlottesville. That call will most certainly not come to Kevin Kelly and Georgetown.
But however painful the outcomes, these games showed the ability of Georgetown to at least aim higher than from where it was. There was no shame in losing to the I-AA national champion, at least in comparison to lose to Marist. And had it added North Dakota State, a likely loss with a guarantee fee, at least you could say the Hoyas were "playing up" against someone on its non-conference schedule. There's no "playing up" like that in 2010.
The Hoyas have traded in Howard, Richmond, and Old Dominion (combined 2009 record: 22-13) for Davidson, Sacred Heart and Wagner (combined 2009 record: 11-20). So long, Foreman Field (capacity 19,782), hello Campus Field (capacity 2,000). And outside of a few misguided folks like me that would still rather see 12,000 in the stands at Villanova on the schedule than 1,500 at Sacred Heart, you can look at the Hoyas' record over these past four years and ask, well, maybe this is all they can handle right now.
And that's what it's come to.
The web site known as the College Football Data Warehouse studied the records of 238 Division I teams over the last ten seasons, ranking Georgetown 232nd in win-loss record and 232nd in strength of schedule. (Wagner and Sacred Heart ranked 234th and 235th, respectively, but such is the fate of low-scholarship football.) And maybe it's fortunate Georgetown was able to pick up these games at such a late date, because universities like GU cannot long tolerate the recent seasons that erode more than Kevin Kelly's record, but his standing at the University.
I mentioned the 2000 schedule, the interregnum between the soft success of the MAAC and the harder ground of the Patriot. Georgetown's schedule that year was a hodge-podge of opponents: five MAAC teams (Duquesne, Marist, and defunct programs at Fairfield,. Iona, St. Peter's), three Patriot teams (Holy Cross, Fordham, and Bucknell), two Pioneer (Davidson, Butler), and one Northeast Conference team (Wagner). The Hoyas finished 0-3 against the Patriot, and 5-3 against everyone else. If the Hoyas could carve out a winning record like that against Yale, Davidson, Wagner, Sacred Heart, and Marist, well...it's not much but it's a start. The problem is, of course, that this is the kind of schedule better suited for 2000 than 2010, and really doesn't prepare the Hoyas for a move up the PL standings. After ten years, the Hoyas seem no more capable of dominating conference opponents than it was in 2000.
But the contrary scenario isn't a pretty one, either: if Georgetown can't win against these five schools (combined 2009 record: 22-30), then what does it say? Excepting I-AA newcomers Campbell and Old Dominion, Georgetown is among seven low-rated I-AA schools (Columbia, Dartmouth, Indiana State, Savannah State, Southern Utah, and St. Francis) with a combined record of 57-241 (.191) over the past four seasons. For these schools to get out of their mess, they must start winning, plain and simple.
So sometimes a step back allows you a few steps forward.
.
Friday, March 19, 2010
D.C. Cup: R.I.P.
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.
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.
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.
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