At the risk of alienating most everyone who reads this, I will unequivocally state that if you have never been to a conference track championship meet (and it is safe to say that 99% of all Hoyas fit in that category), you should never assert that you have seen the entirety of Georgetown athletics. In fact, I might even go further, to say that if you have been only to a conference track championship meet, you will come closer to all there is to experience in the world of Hoya sports than at any other athletic event.

Equipped with my trusty Nikon, and a staff pass to enter the sacred areas reserved for coaches and competitors, I gaped like a little kid at his first carnival. There were no TV cameras, no Hoya Blue cheering sections, no student band; just small groupings of parents, family and friends. Despite the abundance of grandstand seating, this was a meet geared for competitors, not for spectators. Yet great spectacle and high drama were also in abundant supply.

As in all sports, the scoring rules and conventions are arbitrary, but they define the sport and how it is conducted. The Hoya women finished second as a team, yet they did not have the competitors to enter many of the field events. Looking at just the track events, they scored highest among the other teams.

For me, how thrilling it was to witness the transformation of a bunch of Georgetown students, goofing on the team bus just hours before, into superbly conditioned athletes, not fully cognizant of the beauty in their own grace, power, and speed. As I enjoyed watching their athletic mastery, I reflected on the words of former GU president, Tim Healy, SJ that as spectators, we ". . . share in mastery's great gift, pride; pride in what a young man or woman can do, the leap of the heart in surprise and pleasure at great skill greatly used; at its deepest and best, a leap of the heart towards God himself."