I love walking in the halls of Healy and looking at the facade of White-Gravenor. Yet, for an old university with so much history, Georgetown has very few school-wide traditions. Individual student groups like the Philodemic and the Chimes have their own traditions and rituals, but few traditions encompass the entire student body.
This can be attributed to our lack of the traditional collegiate rival. Harvard has Yale. Duke has North Carolina. Stanford has University of California. Georgetown has . well, no one in particular. After this last season, Notre Dame, Syracuse and aryland all received a fair share of Hoya hate. This is an important beginning – the first step toward rival status.
Some students or alumni may argue Syracuse is already our rival. Syracuse is probably the closest school we have to a rival, and our basketball matchup with them this year was a big game but not THE game.
For most people, our game against Maryland proved to be the central event of the season. Scores of enthusiastic and excited fans filled Sellinger Lounge and Hoya Court to watch the game on projection screens. The Washington, D.C., papers extensively covered the game against Maryland, and a local radio station broadcast parts of the event from Sellinger. Although it was a Sweet 16 game, much of the city took an interest in the match because Georgetown and Maryland are relatively close to each other and both have respected basketball programs. With an established rival, a similar level of interest could occur each year.
Such interest happens in my hometown of Los Angeles each year during the UCLA and University of Southern California games. The rivalry excites many people, even those not affiliated with either university.
At my Jesuit high school, students participated in rallies and games before our big game. Although the rallies and contests were asinine, these yearly traditions served as a great way to foster school spirit. And speaking of school spirit, a friend at Duke has mentioned to me how students there camp out to get basketball tickets. With their laptops, Blue Devils fans live and work within their temporary tent village.
We need rallies, student competitions and other events before the game to bolster school spirit. We need banners hanging from residence halls, and we need a bigger student section at MCI Center. Then, for at least one day out of the year, our entire student body could come together and support our team.
As important as they are, athletic traditions are just part of the picture. Other traditions are needed to celebrate ordinary life at Georgetown. Fountain Day and Georgetown Day have recently sprung up to fill this gap. While these events are still in their infancy, we should nurse them into adulthood. We must start somewhere, and I encourage everyone to attend and participate.
We have so little time left to act so irrationally. In less than three years, I’ll be looking for a real job. While planning for the future, we should also enjoy the time we have now. I hope this doesn’t sound too much like a carpe diem speech from Dead Poets Society.
After we graduate, we will not remember our individual classes as much as the friends we made and the traditions we celebrated. We are students, so we must focus on papers and class projects. But at the same time, we must not let the college years slip away. We cannot substitute biology books or Budweisers for the entire college experience.
I do not want to promote anything too grandiose, but I think that for a few days out of the year, students should put down their books and celebrate Georgetown together.
Bryan Stockton is a freshman in the College and Assistant Guide Editor for The Hoya.
