An Open Letter to the Georgetown University Administration

Dear Members of the Georgetown University Administration,

Yesterday, members of the Georgetown University community received an email regarding updates to the school’s public health guidelines for this year’s spring semester. As part of that, you announced that all university-sponsored events cannot be held in person on campus until February 11th. Along those lines, our men’s basketball game against St. John’s at McDonough Arena on February 3rd will likely be held without fans in attendance. I’m here to tell you that this sudden change in policy would be one of the biggest mistakes the university could make.

Before I begin, I want to make something EXTREMELY clear: this is not by any means a critique of the university’s COVID policies. I understand that the university has an obligation to protect the health and safety of its students and community, and for the most part, you have done a fair job of doing so. Instead, this will hopefully shed some light on what this means for the program and what you’re showing your fans.

Now let me start by telling you a short story. Let’s go back in time to January 18th, 1984. On that day, the struggling Providence Friars made their way to the Hilltop to take on the 6th-ranked Hoyas in what came to be the last ever men’s Big East regular season basketball game to be played in front of fans at McDonough Arena. With John Thompson Jr. at the helm and Patrick Ewing on the court, the Hoyas took down the Friars with ease and later that year went on to win the program’s only national championship. The Georgetown Hoyas officially cemented themselves as a national basketball powerhouse. We became a true basketball school and campus life revolved around the success of the team. Life was good on the Hilltop. 

Since then, we’ve had some of the game’s greats grace our campus with their presence. Before Allen Iverson was crossing up Michael Jordan and stepping over Tyronn Lue in the NBA Finals, he was perfecting his moves at the Capital Centre. Before Dikembe Mutumbo was wagging his finger in the Mile High City, he was blocking opponents shots into another zip code from atop the Hilltop. We were a perennial NCAA tournament team and Big East favorite, but where did it all go?

I’ve been a Georgetown basketball fan my entire life. My Georgetown fandom defined much of my childhood, and I am proud to now be a student who can root for my Hoyas at every game. I’ve seen this team make runs to the Final Four and win Big East Championships, but I’ve also seen my boys in blue and gray get upset by FGCU’s Dunk City and struggle to reestablish their footing on the national college basketball scene. Every good basketball program has its ups and downs, but how they rebound from their down years, both on and off the court, is what sets the great programs apart from the good ones and ultimately keeps them from falling into irrelevancy. That’s where we find ourselves now.

Sadly, the last half decade or so has not been overly kind to us Hoyas. Since the 2014-2015 season, we’ve managed to keep our record just barely above .500 with only two NCAA Tournament appearances and one Big East Championship. By no means is this something to be mad at, but it is also a significant dropoff from years past, and this year is no exception. As fans, though, we have been there through the ups and the downs and when it matters most, we want to be rooting for our team. 

Ultimately, decisions like those released yesterday show why our community as a whole is beginning to lose hope for the future. As both students and fans, we want to give this program our unwavering support and hope to see them succeed, but we realize that there is only so much Patrick Ewing and his team can do on the court. If these new policies are implemented as stated, it only shows that you no longer see this program as a priority to the school. 

Once upon a time, we were THE basketball school, but if true, this sudden change in policy simply means you are ok with us falling back into a state of irrelevance. It shows us that you are fine being the laughing stock of the Big East, literally the conference which you helped build, and that winning is no longer a priority. But more importantly, these policies go to alienate those of us who have put our blood, sweat, and tears into their support for your once-famous program. Why should we show our support for this program if you do not? While this policy probably won’t make any national headlines, for many of us this will be the last straw. We will finally understand how our administration views us. Although this pains me in almost every way to say, there is no way of sugarcoating it: this very well could mark the official beginning of the end for Georgetown Basketball’s relevance.

With that being said, let me offer a suggestion on how this could be solved. Obviously COVID continues to be a concern for everyone — hence the policy changes in the first place — but there are ways to limit the risk of transmission without giving up our valuable home court advantage and falling deeper into the pit of irrelevancy. Considering the fact that we are a fully vaccinated and boosted campus, the best way to achieve this safely and effectively is by limiting attendance to only students. 

So far this year, schools across the country have held student-only basketball games at their small, on-campus gymnasiums with extreme success. Seton Hall held their own students-only game just last night with impressive results. Although the banged up Pirates squad couldn’t put it all together and ended up falling to St. John’s, it was clear that student demand was extremely high, and the environment was utterly immaculate. 

Here on the Hilltop, McDonough Arena would serve as the perfect venue for a student-only game. Not only is there clear demand from students to attend a game at McDonough, but the gym’s limited capacity would make the chances of COVID transmission almost insignificant. The fact that we would have almost no interaction with unvaccinated non-university personnel would make such an event more safe than our normal games at the Capital One Arena.

The idea of Georgetown basketball used to be synonymous with being a trailblazer. We were once a symbol of progress and a beacon of hope, and more than anything we were once a force to be reckoned with. As hard as it is to admit, those days are gone. But that should not be taken as a negative. Instead it means we now have an opportunity to blaze our own trail and redefine what it means to be a Georgetown Hoya and play Georgetown basketball. 

So the choice is yours; we’ve officially reached the fork in the road. Either we continue down the path of blissful ignorance, living our lives in the past while the program that unites us rots into a remnant of it once was or we work together and move on to the future where we will rebuild and one day flourish again.

While getting students into McDonough Arena would mean wonders by affirming your support for our beloved program, I hope this letter helps to start a conversation going forward. This community is not truly one when you aren’t standing beside us, so let’s work to bring Georgetown Basketball back, together. 

Hoya Saxa,

Armen Haratunian 

COL ‘24