• U.S.

Sport: Hoops and Huggable Hoyas

5 minute read
Tom Callahan

Georgetown brings the N.C.A.A. basketball title to the East

For the first time in 30 years, the college basketball champion is a resident of the East, and a private school at that, Georgetown University of Washington, D.C. Whether the emphasis is on private, school or basketball, nobody does it better than Georgetown, where students cheer in Greek and Latin (Hoya saxa! What rocks!) under the banner HOYA PARANOIA

IS A PARADIGM OF EXCELLENCE.

That irresistible phrase Hoya Paranoia refers mainly to a squabble over press access, an unremarkable circumstance in Washington. John Thompson, the coach, is too concerned with his players’ needs to worry about their biographers’ convenience; also, college basketball cannot bear too much investigative reporting. Humor is strained more than truth is stretched when Las Vegas Coach Jerry Tarkanian jokes that he loves transfer students because “their cars are already paid for.” At Boston College, Georgetown’s conference companion and Jesuit colleague, a star player who flunked out of school last year was quietly re-enrolled in night classes and kept in the game. The stakes are considerable. For each member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s final four—Virginia, Kentucky, Houston and Georgetown—the payoff exceeded $600,000.

A Georgetown graduate on hand in Seattle last week called the ultimate 84-75 victory over Houston a “demonstration of our superior intellect.” There are better players hi the N.B.A., but it is the fans’ ability to suspend reason that sets off the college game. Students and alumni genuinely imagine that they have something in common with the people enlisted to play basketball for them, holding onto the spirit of a time when everyone matriculated together and a few went out for the team. Cynicism is not unknown, only suppressed. In some places, a lot of things are suppressed.

But if all college basketball teams are certain shades of gray, Georgetown at least seems as light as its pewter uniform. An academic coordinator, Mary Fenlon, holds the rank of assistant coach and sits on the bench looking like a cross schoolmarm. Though 7-ft. Center Patrick Ewing regularly says “we was” and “they was,” he must be learning something. Senior Guard Fred Brown is asked if the championship makes him feel complete, and he replies thoughtfully, “No, I still have to get my degree.” Without irony, Brown says he envisions a career in the FBI, the CIA or the Secret Service.

Once a back-up center to the Boston Celtics’ Bill Russell, Thompson is an equally compelling study. “We’re good friends,” says Russell, “and philosophical allies.” The coach is a mountainous black man with an entirely and overtly black team. Freshman Michael Graham, 6 ft. 9, by some accounts a wanton player, shaves his head. In appearance and manner, he resembles Actor James Earl Jones portraying the boxer Jack Johnson, thumping his chest and shouting, “It’s my turn, and I’m going to take my turn.” Thompson smiles when he notes, “We like to tease our enemies,” but not when he says, “I’ve stopped worrying about fair and unfair. It doesn’t ever balance out.”

Maybe sometimes it does. Two years ago, on a nightmarish reflex, Brown passed the ball to North Carolina’s James Worthy, and Georgetown lost the national championship by a point. The memory is of Brown held fast afterward in Thompson’s embrace. “One of Fred’s mistakes was highlighted,” said the coach. “Most of mine weren’t even detected.” Last week, on a creaky knee, with stabilizing Guard Gene Smith disabled completely, Brown saw the Hoyas through their few unsettling moments. Thompson hugged each man as he came off the court but swung Brown like a semaphore flag.

Being the first black coach to win the championship is a bittersweet distinction to Thompson. “It implies I am the first one who had the ability,” he says, rather than one of the first who had the opportunity. “I’m thinking of Bighouse Gaines [Winston-Salem], John McLendon [Cleveland State] and many others. People are black or white by accident.”

Houston lost very hard, particularly Nigerian Center Akeem Abdul Olajuwon. This was the Cougars’ and Olajuwon’s third consecutive sojourn to the last stop of the tournament, their second finals setback in a row. Wildly talented but still missing the subtleties of the game, and not just the game, Akeem wept and blamed his teammates. Though his Houston teams have won 562 games over 28 seasons, once again Coach Guy Lewis was denigrated as a bumpkin.

Meanwhile, Virginia’s Terry Holland grew in wisdom over one season, improving from a miserable bum who could not win with three-time Player-of-the-Year Ralph Sampson to a bright tactician who went unexpectedly far without him. Kentucky Coach Joe B. Hall, who has won one national title since succeeding Adolph Rupp in 1972, knows about expectations. Of all the passionate basketball regions, Kentucky has the oddest priorities. In education attained, the state ranks 50th in the U.S., but no Kentuckian begrudges spending on the Wildcats.

In the second half of the semifinal game, a towering Kentucky team under construction for five years suddenly found that it could not throw the ball into the Ohio River from the deck of the Delta Queen. Georgetown’s defense was staunch, but 30 misses in 33 shots came close to qualifying as an act of a righteous God. It was the most memorable performance of the season. —By Tom Callahan

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com