Each person who tours Georgetown’s campus hears the story of how the university’s sports teams came to be called the Hoyas. To refresh your memory, here’s how it goes. Back in the day, all Georgetown undergraduates were required to take courses in both Greek and Latin. Using the knowledge gained from these language lectures, the students created the chant of “Hoya Saxa,” meaning “what rocks” to cheer on their football team. Because Copley Lawn was the football team’s original home, this yell would be chanted from the top of the stone wall separating the university grounds from 37th Street. “Hoya Saxa” would become such a campus fixture that the student newspaper named itself The Hoya, and the sports teams would shortly thereafter be referred to as the Hoyas.
Not only did the students who lived in Healy Hall two centuries ago bestow the most unique nickname in college sports upon the Georgetown sports teams by creating such a yell, but they must have also given the football team an incredible home field advantage. Imagine trying to make a clean handoff when a bunch of rowdy college kids are sitting directly above your head, yelling incomprehensible phrases in your ear. It’s no wonder that Georgetown’s early football teams were considered some of the best on the Eastern seaboard.
More recently, however, Patriot League opponents have had little reason to fear the Hoya fans. Since 1979, home football games have been played on Kehoe Field, otherwise known as the worst facility in Division I athletics. Aging turf, biting Hilltop winds, bleachers with horrible visibility placed too far away from the field and low-quality opponents are some of the things that have kept Georgetown students from making the trip to the west side of campus on Saturday mornings. Average attendance at home games last season was 1,963, or less than one third of the undergraduate student body. At many of the games, including Lehigh, Georgetown’s first opponent this season, it seemed that the visitors’ cheering section was larger than the Hoyas’. Hopefully this year will be different.
In two weeks, the Hoyas will play their first game on Harbin Field, which is so close to campus that anyone living in Village C or Harbin has little excuse to not roll out of bed on Saturday morning and head down to the game. Even though a construction site and a parking lot currently border Harbin, it is surely a much prettier field than Kehoe could ever hope to be. Natural grass, shelter from the wind and Patriot League opponents offer a major improvement over some of the problems that made Kehoe a spectator’s hell.
You could do something great for the university and the football team by showing up at Harbin Field once every other weekend or so this fall. You could give the Hoyas the home field advantage they have lacked for so long. How bad has Georgetown’s support been over the past few years? The first time I made the trip up to Kehoe Field with a couple of friends my freshman year, I stood up and yelled when the Hoyas scored their first touchdown of the season. Looking around, I realized I was one of about 10 people in the half-empty seats standing and clapping. Most of the other students were wrapped up in conversations and were not even watching the game.
Many students that do not come to the games (or come to the games and do not watch) are under the impression that either the quality of football played on this campus isn’t very good, or that Georgetown simply can’t win games. This is not accurate. This is Georgetown’s second year in the Patriot League, a huge step up from the MAAC, the Hoyas’ old conference. That move has seriously improved the coaching staff’s ability to recruit some of the best players on the East Coast. Although the Hoyas still may not be able to compete with some of the top teams in the league, they should be able to pick up a couple of wins this season. At the very least, many of the games should be close. As a senior who has had the opportunity to witness the transition between conferences, I can say that the team now representing this university has much more talent than the team that nearly no one stood up and cheered for my freshman year. As this new team moves to a new field, they could sure use a new home field advantage.
So come to the games, bring your friends. Have a Saturday morning party beforehand if you and your friends need a little incentive to get loud and rowdy. The more people that come to the games, the more fun they will be. Standing up by yourself and cheering, on the other hand, isn’t so great. Let’s bring a home field advantage back to Georgetown football games this season.
