More Needs to Change Than Just the Coach

In preparation for my first post in years, I went back to find the last thing I wrote on this awful lunch blog. It was entitled “More Details Leaked About New Big East Contract with Fox Sports” and it boasted the sub-headline “The future is bright, my friends.” It was written ten days before FGCU crushed my soul, nine months from the start of a new conference and four years since I last felt good about the direction of this program. Pathetically, the post included the following call to action:

I think the next step for the schools is to get all the coaches in a room to acknowledge that the future success of this league depends on their collective willingness to stick with the programs they current reside over. I want Brad Stevens to look John Thompson III in the eye and say that he is in the New Big East for the long-haul. I want Steve Lavin and Buzz Williams to agree that their current positions are not stepping stones. Heated rivalries among young, smart, and driven coaches is what made the old Big East great, and is the next step to ensuring the stability and relevance of our new conference.

Eek, what can I say, I was young. I was moved by the magic of building something new but old, and allured by the romanticism of a son recreating what his father had built decades prior. It’s a family affair I told myself, and we knew what to do to lead this new conference.

What a crock of shit. This is a business.

The thing I have come to realize about Georgetown Basketball in my four years of quiet somberness is that while other programs use the past to guide the future, we use the past to spite the future. We use words like tradition and legacy to hide from change and reality. It’s infuriating. We are alienating a generation of supporters; the ones that will carry this program beyond the next decade.

Thankfully, some change is on the horizon. I hope, however, we use this opportunity to start fresh everywhere. New relationships with the students, alumni, fans, ticket holders, supporters, community and media. Move on from past grievances that still needle our progress. No longer should a singular open practice be accepted as a replacement for communication. It is time for Georgetown to stop waiting for the 80’s to come back around and instead build a new tradition that people should want to join, not fear to leave. Hoya Paranoia must be buried.

This blog launched in March 2009 with a tagline of Where Cynical Meets Delusional. Time to be delusional again.