V I E W   F R O M   T H E   H I L L T O P

February 2, 2009

Raising Our Game

For most of the 139-year history of intercollegiate athletics at Georgetown, fund raising was an iffy proposition – sporadically undertaken and underwhelming at that. After 100 years of this on-again, off-again model, a group of alumni, students, parents, faculty and staff sought to change this paradigm in 1970 by establishing an annual appeal for Hoya sports -- through a booster organization called Hoyas Unlimited. I was a student-athlete at the time and I remember well the positive feelings that this external support engendered, despite its meager beginnings.


For most of the 139-year history of intercollegiate athletics at Georgetown, fund raising was an iffy proposition – sporadically undertaken and underwhelming at that. After 100 years of this on-again, off-again model, a group of alumni, students, parents, faculty and staff sought to change this paradigm in 1970 by establishing an annual appeal for Hoya sports -- through a booster organization called Hoyas Unlimited. I was a student-athlete at the time and I remember well the positive feelings that this external support engendered, despite its meager beginnings.

Six years later, I had the opportunity to serve as president of Hoyas Unlimited. In spite of earnest attempts to raise the giving bar, the institutional and resource constraints placed upon our efforts were considerable, and frustrating. At the end of the decade, I led an exercise to reshape Hoyas Unlimited into the organizational model that exists today.

By the early 1980’s, fund raising began to rise steadily. At the time, I was fortunate to serve in the lead staff role with Hoyas Unlimited. Before this decade ended however, the need for more was urgent and the lack of major gift development in athletics was glaring. Again, a new model was called for. I soon found myself working closely with then athletic director, Frank Rienzo, to solicit major gifts for coaching and scholarships.

Under this model, annual giving and major giving to athletics has continued to grow substantially for the past 20 years. Still, relative to our intercollegiate competition, we have been treading water at best. Still more is needed today.

For the past three and one-half years, I have written and posted to this space - entitled View From The Hilltop - on Georgetown’s official athletic website. VFTH is a blog; a link-filter; a sports column; part commentary, part journal, part photo album; a portal; it is colloquial analysis; and it is home-grown. My goal was to make this corner of the website fun and interesting, and in the process, build a community of greater interest.

One year ago last June, I posted a blog entry entitled “A Call to Arms.” It provided some context for the current state of resources available to Georgetown athletics. It also put forth a call to action to elevate the fund raising bar for Hoya sports and suggested that a new paradigm is needed to move forward.

With this post, I am happy to report that a new organizational model is underway. This parallel website, www.raiseourgame.com, is one valuable part of this revised effort to rally support for athletics. View From The Hilltop will henceforth reside in these pages with appropriate cross-links to www.guhoyas.com. Georgetown’s future athletic success is in our hands and will depend upon our ability today to “raise our game.”



And I, for one, am happy to support it.


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