May 25, 2011
WASHINGTON - While their classmates were participating in graduation ceremonies this weekend, five members of the Georgetown baseball team were wrapping up a three-game series against conference rival Seton Hall in New Jersey.
It was a sometimes tough season for the Hoyas, who finished with a 23-33 overall record and were 5-24 in the BIG EAST, with 10 of those losses coming by either one or two runs. But if you ask any of the five seniors who missed their graduation ceremonies on Saturday if they wanted to be anywhere else and the answer was almost identical.
"It was never even a question to me," senior catcher Erick Fernandez (Hialeah, Fla./Hialeah) said. "There was no place else I wanted to be than with my team and with the five guys I've played with since the day I got here."
"We were playing no matter what," senior third baseman Sean Lamont (Houston, Texas/Bellaire) said. "To me, it's a no-brainer. We wanted to finish the season."
"It did cross my mind that while the rest of our class was graduating and we were playing a game," redshirt junior Tommy Isaacs (Ponte Vedre Beach, Fla./Bolles) said. "But the fact that we had one more chance to play together really made it a lot better."
The five seniors - Fernandez, Lamont, Isaacs, Dan Godefroi (Andover, Mass./Andover) and reliever Pablo Vinent (Hialeah, Fla./Belen Jesuit) - also had a chance to graduate together, participating in a private ceremony at Riggs Library in Healy Hall on Monday morning.
Three of seniors graduated from the McDonough School of Business, with Lamont and Vinent earning degrees in marketing and Isaacs with a double major in finance and management. Fernandez and Godefroi both earned degrees in political economy from the College.
So while many members of their class had the chance to take part in Senior Week festivities - going to the President's Picnic, attending the Senior Ball - the Hoya baseball team hit the road on Wednesday for a three-game series against Seton Hall. After the series was done, the team arrived back on campus Saturday evening and the players gathered, with their families, for their own ceremony on Monday morning.
"The scheduled graduation for us had its perks too," Lamont said. "We're in Riggs Library and in Healy and we got to personally visit with the President and all of the people involved. It was a small ceremony with our families and it was really a special experience.
"It was nice and personal," Vinent said. "It was just for us. President DeGioia talked about being a student-athlete and the balance we have to maintain with academics and baseball. He thanked us for the sacrifices we made to represent the school and I just really liked that part of it."
Fernandez might not have been at Georgetown this year had he taken an offer from the Washington Nationals after he was selected in the Major League Baseball Draft in 2010, but earning his degree from Georgetown was a major reason for his return to campus.
"I know how much this meant to my mother," said Fernandez, who now awaits the 2011 Major League Draft, which starts on June 6. "A big part of me coming back was to have the experience of playing with my teammates for one more year and to have the chance for my family to see me get my degree from Georgetown."
Isaacs and Vinent will both return to Georgetown next year, using their final year of athletic eligibility, but they opted to walk this year, with their teammates.
"I'll be back next year, but I won't get the chance to do anything special like that again," said Isaacs, who will be pitching for Petersburg (Va.) in the Coastal Plains League this summer. "The five of us have spent so much time together and so many hours each week. All I heard when I got back was how graduation lasted three hours, but I feel pretty lucky that we had a special venue in doing it in Riggs."
Vinent, who will be interning with a real estate company near his home in Miami this summer as he prepares for a Georgetown graduate program in that field, felt the same way.
"Walking with those guys I came in with my freshman year was a big deal for me," Vinent said. "They've been my brothers for four years and to share that with them was one of the best parts about it."
The experience made it extra-special for Lamont, whose mother joined him at the ceremony. His father, Bill, has not been able to travel throughout the season as he recovers from an illness and he received an e-mail of pictures of his son with University President John J. DeGioia following the ceremony. Lamont hopes that his dream will continue when the Major League Draft starts.
"President DeGioia talked about how the athletes in the United States from ages 7 to 11 number like 35 million and In high school it drops to like 17 million and then beyond that it's in the hundred thousands," Lamont recalled. "And at Georgetown, we have just over 700 and with baseball, I have four other guys that I've been on campus with since the day I started here and I just played my last college game and then we all got to earn our degrees together. We spent countless hours doing this together, playing a game we love and doing it at Georgetown. It doesn't get much better than that."
