Nov. 20, 2007
I am a rare breed among Hoya fans: I grew up rooting against Patrick Ewing.
Looking back, it was nothing personal. At age 12, I was tall for a 7th grader, and I spent plenty time in my driveway trying to mimic Ewing's sweep across the lane. But when NBA games started? Forget it. Basketball meant one thing growing up in the Chicago area: Michael Jordan.
Chicago had always been a Bears town, but Jordan made the Bulls the must-have ticket. He even created the need for a new arena. After Jordan's first retirement, it became clear that Chicago was a Jordan town, not a Bulls town.
But for those of us who were young in Jordan's prime, the special feeling of basketball stayed with us. It was obvious in the destinations of my college applications - the common ties were good education and good basketball. I decided on Georgetown as my university at roughly the same time as Allen Iverson decided on David Falk as his agent.
I spent a few years on the staff of the sports section of The Hoya, Big John Thompson retired as I headed out for study abroad, and Hoya basketball rarely entered my mind during that half year in Australia. But as I transitioned from student to alum, I found myself caring more and more about the fortunes of Hoya hoops. I rallied friends to games many times during my first four years as an alumnus. We celebrated Nat Burton's lay-up, we screamed through all four overtimes against Notre Dame, and we thought Mike Sweetney was indeed fouled every time down the court.
Despite the great fun in DC, I decided to come back home to Chicago in the spring of 2004. It was roughly the same time as John Thompson III decided to come back home to Washington.
Basketball has brought Chicago Hoyas out in mass numbers in the last few years. The afternoon Big East tournament games produce cross-generational fun at a fancy restaurant's bar in the Loop. We stood toe to toe with North Carolina (we share a game watch location with Tar Heel alumni) and we completely filled a bar an hour before the Final Four tipped off. I have stopped counting the emails asking for tickets to January's DePaul game.
Clearly, I'm hooked. I can even argue that Ewing's sweep wasn't a travel. Not bad for a newcomer.
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Ball State isn't Georgetown's most anticipated non-conference game; however, I expect to see a scrappy squad, blue-clad for the first time this year, looking to build upon a great effort against Michigan last week. Anyone at the game saw the slumped Wolverine shoulders five minutes into the first half; the young Michigan players were clearly overmatched. As Michigan fans turned their thoughts back to Ohio State, I enjoyed my first in-person glimpse of Chris Wright and Austin Freeman. I can't wait to see the team in the rare environment of a small gym in Muncie, Ind. on Wednesday.
Jeffrey Goldstein B'00
