Athletics at Georgetown

In the 1980s, Georgetown gained national attention with the success of its men's basketball team after the creation of the Big East Conference. As the Big East became a national sensation, Georgetown quickly developed a heated rivalry with teams like Syracuse. Led by Head Coach John Thompson Jr., the Hoyas appeared in the NCAA tournament every year for over a decade, playing in the Final Four three times, and winning the national championship in 1984. The team's star player, Patrick Ewing, returned to the basketball team in 2017 - this time as Head Coach.

But Georgetown's athletic tradition began well before the 1980s. Before organized sports, students enjoyed playing handball on the current site of Village A. The front lawn was where students would play football and baseball in the late 1800s. Around this time, it was popular for schools to have distinctive chants for fans to cheer at sporting events. Georgetown students came up with the chant "Hoya Saxa," which some have translated from Greek and Latin to mean "What Rocks" - a possible reference to the stone wall built alongside the front lawn. After using the name "Hilltoppers" for awhile, Georgetown's sports teams became popularly known as the Georgetown Hoyas by the 1920s and the cheer "Hoya Saxa" is still used commonly at Georgetown today.

The name "Hoyas," though, did not lend itself to a natural mascot. After a decades-old tradition of bringing dogs to campus for sporting events, the Student Mascot Committee decided to adopt an English Bulldog as Georgetown's official mascot in the early 1960s. Students tried to name the dog "Hoya," but he would only respond to "Jack" since his previous name was "Royal Jacket." There have been many generations of Jack the Bulldog and you can still find Jack at every basketball game.

As organized athletics took hold at Georgetown, Ryan Gymnasium - now the Davis Performing Arts Center - was opened in 1906 as the university's first athletic facility. After outgrowing Ryan, McDonough Arena was constructed in 1951, named after Fr. Vincent McDonough, the long-time Director of Athletics. In the late 1970s, the focus on student space led Georgetown to construct a new indoor general use gym for non-varsity athletes named after longtime Government professor Fr. Gerard Yates. Most recently, in 2016, a state of the art athletics facility for varsity athletes was built and named in honor of legendary basketball coach John Thompson Jr.

Today, Georgetown has 29 varsity sports teams and many club sports teams.

LEARN MORE

Learn more about Georgetown athletics here.

Learn the fight song and alma mater here.