The specter of Big East realignment is one of the greatest threats to the Georgetown University identity. Watching our longtime rivals switch conferences would not only harm us on the athletic front alone, but it also would put our whole state of being in peril.
Losing Syracuse, Pittsburgh and others would be foremost an athletic disaster. Heading into the final week of last year’s season, Syracuse University and Pittsburgh University, the two schools now applying to transfer from the Big East to the Atlantic Coast Conference, were ranked extremely high in men’s basketball both within the conference and nationally. Notre Dame and the University of Connecticut, two other schools in which the ACC has expressed interest, were also top contenders.UConn ended up winning the national championship.
It seems unlikely that UConn and Notre Dame will depart the Big East, but if it were to happen, the four best teams from our conference last year would be Big East teams no more. I may not be a basketball expert, but I imagine it would be difficult for us — as well as for other Big East schools — to maintain the same storied program. Teams challenge each other and grow stronger through competition. Ostensibly, the ramifications of a weaker conference might include less television coverage, fewer interested recruits and lower rankings.
But is our basketball program that storied after all? Athletic institutions do not necessarily correspond to winning traditions, and to me, basketball at Georgetown often feels like it deserves only to belong in the category of the former. We go to games because it’s part of the culture of our fellow students. There is the familiar aftermath of defeat, one that includes calls for accountability and new models for competitiveness, and yet, these cries are always made in vain. There is life beyond basketball at Georgetown, and if devoting ourselves wholly to the sport is the cost of becoming national champions, just making the tournament each year is fine with me.
This might be the fundamental difference between our perceptions and those of a school like Syracuse. For colleges of a similar basketball caliber, athletic ramifications dictate the sentiment behind every game. Basketball, and not necessarily winning, characterizes the culture at Georgetown. That is why losing our rival would be a tragedy. Each year, Georgetown defines itself in that line formed outside the Verizon Center at the crack of dawn one freezing winter morning. But that shared experience is what most of us will ultimately remember, rather than the score of the game. Perhaps, unfortunately, qualitative value is only meaningful to this Georgetown student.
During the season, we get so excited that quantifiable measures take over. We get hung up on results and often end up disappointed. But when we observe Georgetown from afar, we realize that basketball comprises just one part of our university’s character. If we feel that Georgetown University is the right school for us, we have to live with the fact that finding balance means nothing can be perfect. But if we suddenly become athletically disadvantaged, basketball will no longer be the rationale for our other imperfections. We will have to find a new point of equilibrium. If the Georgetown identity thrives in balance, then losing competitiveness in basketball would also have consequences for other facets of Georgetown.
Georgetown is unfairly suffering for trying to balance its identities, while so many universities commit themselves to a single persona. It would be a terrible shame if realignment costs us our fundamental makeup as a university.
Andrew Toporoff is a sophomore in the College. MULTUMQUE UNUM appears every other Friday.
