The Hoya Must-Read list

[FLHoya]

I had an idea today, actually something that I'd wanted to ask the fine folks and fanatics on the Hoyatalk Board for a while. I'd never seen it brought up before (on here anyways), so here goes:

Basically, the question for everyone is: What, in your opinion, should be on the definitive must-read list for anybody who wants to be a true Hoya basketball fanatic?

You can think about it in a number of ways, like:

1. If a friend of yours said to you: "I'm just getting into college basketball, I want to become a die-hard Georgetown fan, and I want to really know my stuff about the program and its history."

2. If you just wanted to be a more "complete" fan--know more about the team now and the great Hoya teams of the past.

3. The way I thought about it originally: if "Hoya Basketball" were a course at GU, what would be on the syllabus?

Here's the rules:

1. For this thread, let's confine all suggestions to the written word. So that means old game tapes, videos, and Rich Chvotkin are out for now. (But there will definitely be a "Viewing List" thread soon if this goes well.) Everything else--books, old media articles, websites or things written on those websites, people's posts, the stuff written on the cubicles in Lauinger--is fair game.

Transcripts of press conferences, speeches, etc. are kind of a fuzzy area--if it's something that comes across just as well written, I guess it's cool.

2. It has to be tied in some substantial way to Georgetown basketball. DFW sent me this link earlier tonight: www.dukebasketballreport.com/booklist.html. (Everybody needs to at least read that for Mike Brey's "classic" response). It's a little different than this, but the point is: High Fidelity doesn't count as a valid response here.

It doesn't have to have grand historical sigficance necessarily. Just something that would be interesting and useful to a fan.

3. If possible, provide a link to any item that you cite. What would be awesome if enough people got behind this is if we could compile our big old list and put it up for other Hoya fans.

Otherwise, anything goes.

[SFHoya99]

1. www.hoyabasketball.com
2. Big Man on Campus, Leonard Shapiro (find through Amazon)
3. Georgetown: The Championships and Thompson, Roland Lazenby -- Great Pics, available at www.guhoyas.com
4. Get the media guide, also available at guhoyas.com
5. Posts by NTAMM
6. Bill Simmons' article on Sleepy Floyd's fantastic playoff game (think it is premium now)
7. Chris Palmer's article on DC Hoops a few years ago -- espn.go.com/page2/wash/s/2002/0311/1349476.html
8. www.basketball-reference.com/colleges/georgetown.html
9. Ralph Wiley on Michael Jackson at espn.go.com/page2/wash/s/wiley/020314.html

Posted here:

Michael Jackson
Epitome of Georgetown. Most people uninitiated think of, say, Patrick Ewing as such. Maybe they think of the Baltimore Dunbar Expatriate Poets, David Wingate and Reggie Williams. Or they think of smoke coming out of Michael Graham's nostrils. But for the down, Georgetown was epitomized by point Michael Jackson. Not that Michael Jackson, although it would've been interesting to see how far Big Bad John would've gotten, trying to get the King of Pop to play hardnose D and stick tight to opposing quick and firm-fleshed young men. Come to think of it, it may not have been much of a stretch for Jacko.

But the Mike Jackson we're talking about, D.C. Michael Jackson, was a four-year starter at point guard between the fall of 1982 and 1986 at G'Town, after coming from out of Reston before Reston was there. Started two national title games. Engaging personality, fun, full of life, impossible to back down or intimidate. Laughed at your intimidation. Hard for him to adhere to the No Freshman Interviews edict hung around Hoya necks like scarlet A's.

On court, Mike Jackson was 6-1, kind of thick and chunky, but quick. Not fast, necessarily. Quick. Not fast from A to D. But quicker from A to B. Solid. Better to not be knocked off the ball in practice by Gene Smith. Big John didn't like point guards. Liked point rocks. Bay-Bay Duren, Smith, Mike Jackson.

In the 1984 NCAA semifinal against Kentucky in Seattle, in an early Hoya offensive set, 7-0 Sam Bowie, the man about to be picked in that year's NBA draft by Portland instead of Michael Jordan, said out loud, "I got him, I got him," to his teammates as Jackson held the ball on the deep left and Sam flexed out against him. Then, tor some reason, Sam sloughed off MJ, down inside on Ewing. Mike Jackson muffled his incredulity -- you giving me that? -- then hit one of a series of unerring jump shots, then got into the storied Hoya full-court pressure, all while smiling and reminding Bowie of his famous last words: "You got me, Sam. You got me, all right."

Mike Jackson was a good-looking guy. If he'd been a Redskin instead of a Hoya, he'd be mayor by now. Never would have heard of Anthony Williams. Who's Anthony Williams? Never mind.

Mike Jackson had a cup of coffee in the NBA, then settled into a media corporation. Thought he might be the next Kimberly Belton. Belton was a former great college hooper at Stanford, but made his bones and his living as a television producer. Last I heard, Mike was down in Atlanta, biding his time, waiting for Anthony Williams to make the mistake of campaigning for Mike Tyson.

Well, in the meantime, we ain't forgot you, MJ.

You've got our vote.

Underground hoops: The Stage I, II & II

Ex-Hoya Victor Page's lefty game lit up ballers behind the stage at McDonough arena.
Stage I is the little hidden court behind the stage at McDonough arena at Georgetown. Close quarters. Warmup games of three-on-three often conducted while the Jabbor Kenner League games are being played out on the formal McDonough court. Many dudes have been busted behind the stage. That's where Georgetown assistant coaches smile tight little smiles and evaluate talent. Victor Page used to throw down on borderline NBA types in there. Killing 'em. Victor was hard, had mad lefty game. Problem is, his handle-game was too lefty. Left early from Georgetown to go hardship. That was a beginning of finding out what hardship is really all about.

[HoyaChris]

The syllabus should have the columns from the Washington Post by Ken Denlinger from the period 1975-1985. Those collected columns would provide the sense of just how John Thompson revolutionized the college basketball scene. I have no clue how we might get these.

It would also have selected articles from Eastern Basketball Magazine, a monthly with surprisingly high literary merit fromthe early and mid 80's. The classic article was "Finally it's Carolina." I think I have these old Eastern Basketballs somewhere in storage and, if I can did them up, would wonder about what strictures might be placed on reprinting 25 year old articles from defunct publications.

[SFHoya99]

hoyachris said:

The syllabus should have the columns from the Washington Post by Ken Denlinger from the period 1975-1985. Those collected columns would provide the sense of just how John Thompson revolutionized the college basketball scene. I have no clue how we might get these.

It would also have selected articles from Eastern Basketball Magazine, a monthly with surprisingly high literary merit fromthe early and mid 80's. The classic article was "Finally it's Carolina." I think I have these old Eastern Basketballs somewhere in storage and, if I can did them up, would wonder about what strictures might be placed on reprinting 25 year old articles from defunct publications.

Library of Congress.

Or frankly, hoyabasketball/GU admin should be able to ask the Post for the Hoya archives...

[paranoia2]

I didn't attend Georgetown but my older brother was there during Ewing's 4 years. If you wnt to truly know Hoya basketball in the successful era (I only go back to 1981) do some research on Eric Smith. Maybe the smartest and best all around player I've seen. Everyone remembers Brown's pass to Worthy and nobody remembers Smith streaking down the court to foul him. On a court with Ewing, Floyd, Jordan, Worthy and Perkins the guy stood out. Another highlight for me was during the year after Reggie graduated. My brother and I are at Madison Square Garden and SJU is beating us by nine with like 40 seconds left. Jaren Jackson, who goes on to win an nba crown, goes leaping over the press table to try and make a steal and almost kills himself. I nevr walked out of an arena more proud of my team. There are countless more examples of the great Hoya tradition but just watch for yourself as it comes around again and spins in everyone's face. The one constant of being a Hoya fan is knowing that the majority of fans want your team to stink.

[JohnJacquesLayup]

sfhoya99 said:

But the Mike Jackson we're talking about, D.C. Michael Jackson, was a four-year starter at point guard between the fall of 1982 and 1986 at G'Town, after coming from out of Reston before Reston was there. Started two national title games. Engaging personality, fun, full of life, impossible to back down or intimidate. Laughed at your intimidation. Hard for him to adhere to the No Freshman Interviews edict hung around Hoya necks like scarlet A's.

Before Reston was there? My home town was founded in April of 1964, damn it! (By Robert E. Simon, hence the "Res" in Reston.)

I think I mentioned this before, but our high school trophy case has a bunch of magazine and news clippings of MJ's career. Pretty neat stuff . . .

[Deleted]

FLHoya's game recaps

MCIGuy's volumes on the merits of Ruben Bountje-Boumtje

[calihoya07]

Since I write for The Hoya I figure I should put in a good word for us... All the basketball preview issues have solid content and they have a lot of basketball info in one place... See www.thehoya.com/basketball2004/index.cfm for example... They have more recent Georgetown basketball stuff, so they won't help you get to know the history of the program, but they are a good place to look for more in-depth features on specific players/games/coaches/etc... The JT3 interview is especially a good place to start to get to know him and his thoughts

[BurleithBeast]

sfhoya99 said:

hoyachris said:

Library of Congress.

Or frankly, hoyabasketball/GU admin should be able to ask the Post for the Hoya archives...

Even easier...Every GU student has free access to Nexis through the library's Web site.

www.library.georgetown.edu/advisor/index.cfm?Action=Category&attributeid=50&name=News%20%26%20Newspapers#L

The Post is available from 1/1/1977 on. Before that, Proquest has content (they actually run the archives available on the Post's Web site), but GU doesn't that stuff.

(Note Denlinger didn't get his column until '80 or '81; he was a beat writer before. And as everyone probably knows, he gave up the column to return to the Hoyas beat in the mid-'90s.)

[TBird41]

I have to say, I love reading this article by Ralph Wiley on JTII and Georgetown:

espn.go.com/page2/s/villains/wiley.html

Great stuff.

[theEDGEfactor]

Great article TBird, they sed the hate for us is easing off. I guess just like JT3 sed when we will remind them, that means the same with the hate coming back for us. I want to the hate that every1 has towards duke for them to have towards us 2 because with hate comes respect along with it.

[lichoya68]

good stuff you all brings back alot of memories and i think were about to create some GREAT NEW MEMORIES IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS THANKS TO jt3 and the guys gohoyas bring on the memories..

[idhoya]

For recruiting, the BE Yearbooks from the early 80's up to when they stopped puttin em out in the mid 90's. I still have them. The first one I have is an 85-86 or 86-87 edition w/ a collage of BE players on the cover, including Jonathan Edwards. Really good preview mag and had in-depth recruiting coverage of each team in conference, rankings and HS recruits, lists and analysis. I haven't seen anything like it since. I miss 'em. MRM publishing, I think, put it out.

[2ndRyan]

what a great thread.

Frank Deford did a bio of JTII in SI and I guess it was in the late eighties. Anyone else recall it?

I've done a search and come up empty. Deford's SI archive online only goes back to '93 .

Deford also did a great piece on Al McGuire which I'd love to find.

[DallasHoya]

I remember an SI article on JT in the early 80's; I think it was after the '82 loss but definitely before '84. Made him out to be a saint, in contrast to SI (primarily Curry Kirpatrick) making him out to be the villian by '84-85.