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."