WASHINGTON – The Georgetown University community mourns the passing of Mary A. Fenlon, a seminal figure in the history of the Georgetown University Athletics Department and most known for her role as the longtime men's basketball academic coordinator. Fenlon, the first hire made by Hall of Famer John Thompson Jr., when he took over the men's basketball program in 1972, passed away on Sunday, December 15 in Henderson, Nevada. The 81-year-old lost her battle with cancer.
With just three assistant coaching positions permitted, Thompson hired two assistants to focus on basketball and one to handle academics – and that
one was Mary Fenlon.
"Back then I knew it was ridiculous for an institution of higher education not to have a person who would be responsible for coordinating academics in the face of the great demands and pressures generated by a Division I program," Thompson reflected in 1989 as the unprecedented decade of athletics accomplishments came to a close. "Since our expectations were to build a successful program, it made sense to build our academic foundation at the same time we were building our athletic foundation."
Fenlon spent 27 years as the backbone of a program that saw overwhelming success winning the 1984 NCAA Championship, appearing in three Final Fours, making 25 postseason appearances including 20 in the NCAA Tournament and capturing six BIG EAST Tournament titles. However, it was the achievements in the classroom that will be Fenlon's legacy. During her time on the Hilltop, student-athletes who stayed all four years maintained a 97 percent graduation rate and Georgetown's Ya Ya Dia was the program's first BIG EAST Men's Basketball Student-Athlete of the Year.
"She was like a parent," Head Coach
Patrick Ewing said of Fenlon. "She was like a mother figure – even though we all had mothers – but she was our mother figure here on campus. Because of her and the work ethic that she showed us, we were able to be successful after leaving here."
Fenlon often said she was simply executing Thompson's demand that all members of the Georgetown basketball program emphasize their education.
"John has a great belief that he wants to make every youngster that comes through here very much responsible for their own education," Fenlon once said in a rare interview. "Sometimes education – at that point when you're young – you don't know the value of what is being given to you. And he wants to make sure that that's always constantly hammered into them."
A stalwart in her role behind the scenes as well as on the Georgetown bench, Fenlon described her position as one of the first academic coordinators in the country to be "common sense." If Georgetown was "asking the students to spend so much time in practice, traveling and at games" then the University must also check how they were progressing academically because "there has to be something to balance the time demands made by basketball."
Perhaps even more famous than Fenlon herself is the lore of "Mary's Book" – the book in which student-athletes had to log their weekly progress. Feared by many but ultimately appreciated by all as "Mary's Book" instilled accountability into the boys who came to Georgetown and eventually left the Hilltop as young men ready to take on the world.
"Coach Thompson's vision for Georgetown basketball was that it would be a place where we would achieve athletic excellence
and academic excellence," University President John J. DeGioia said. "But the way in which that vision came alive was through the work, every day, of Mary Fenlon."
Earlier this season, Fenlon was inducted into the Georgetown Athletics Hall of Fame. She became the 42nd inductee from the men's basketball program, and the sixth non-player. She joins
Lorry Michel as the only two females from the men's basketball program inducted into the Georgetown Athletics Hall of Fame, both hired by John Thompson Jr.
Fenlon is the only female to serve as an assistant coach for USA Basketball at the Olympics as she was brought on by Thompson when he was named the head coach at the 1988 Summer Olympics.
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A funeral service will be held on Friday, January 10 at 2 p.m. at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Henderson, Nevada.
Gallery: (12/16/2019) Mary Fenlon
