The Joys of a Midwest Hoya Fan

"Why do we play this team?" or "Why is this team in the Big East?" are familiar refrains for fans of the older conference teams whenever they see a former Conference USA on their schedules. A couple times a season Hoya fans join the chorus when it's time to play one of the new guys. Weoften complain that wecan't get excited to play a South Florida or a Louisville the same way wecan for a game against Pitt or Villanova because something about those schools just don't feel right, just don't feel like they belong in a conference called the Big East. I can see why to these fans it just seems wrong for the Hoyas to have to travel tostates likeIllinois and Wisconsin, Midwest country, during conference play.

But I'm selfish and I like it.

I've got two factors on my side that prevent me from being a Big East purist. For one my Hoya allegiances don't predate the 2005 realignment. When my acceptance letter to Georgetown came in the spring of 2006 the conference was as it is now; 16 schools spanning from Rhode Island to Florida to my own Illinois. Thus when I picked up my first season tickets a few months later, it didn't feel at all weird to have Midwestern schools like DePaul and Marquette on the slate.

The second factor is that having road games in the Midwest make for great events for us Midwest Hoyas. This is especially nice for current studentswhen these games occur over holiday breaks, as it did in the 07-08 season with DePaul*and now this season with both the DePaul and Marquette games falling over our Winter Break. I made my second trip to the Allstate Arena in Rosemont Illinois last Sunday to watch the Hoyas winand I will be making my first ever trip to the Bradley Center on Wednesday.

And I can tell that I'm not alone in enjoying these opportunities to see the Hoya play in a central time zone. Several thousand fellow Hoya fans made their way to the game on Sunday. Lots of them showed up before hand at the Georgetown Club of Chicago's pregame event at a nearby Harry Caray'sbut many others like my uncle (who didn't go to Georgetown but is a big Hoya fan) came on their own volition to watch their team play.

Since the Marquette game is on a random Wednesday night it's doubtful that anyone outside of our small but proud Wisconsin fanbasewill be there, but in the past many have made the trek up to Milwaukee. I've heard stories about how various Midwest alumni groups have arranged bus trips to watch us play our sole Jesuit in-conference rival, much like how groups like the HHC and Hoya Blue do for Georgetown away games at more "traditional" Big East schools. Having some Midwest schools as conference mates is a plus for some Hoya fans and hopefully we will have the opportunity to watch our guys play out here for the foreseeable future.

* The famous Jon Wallace highlighted OT winover the Golden Eagles occurred over spring break that year but I had to find a tvin Central America to watch it.

- Kasper Statz(COL '10)