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Editor's Note: Erin Zimmer, DCist Staff writer, is a senior at Georgetown. Last night, she took part in the festivities following Georgetown's Elite Eight victory over UNC. The following is an account of the proceedings.
For all of last night's game, Georgetown townhouses kept their doors open. Crowds of kids huddled around their televisions, jumping up and down at every play. But once the magical three-pointer tied up the game (81-81) with 24 seconds left on the clock, Hoyas went from crazy to absolute berserk mode. The final score had people out in the streets, texting and calling family. But the mood was still tense. Five minutes of overtime is still a long time.
When the first basket was made -- symbolizing our first lead of the game since the first half (83-81) -- the Georgetown community experienced a mini-earthquake. Cheers echoed off every brick wall. And so began the five minutes of Tar Heels sucking. After watching them butcher every shot, everyone realized we were actually going to beat UNC. Berserk mode transitioned to high-definition berserk mode, and Hoyas came out of the woodwork, ripping off their shirts, running into the streets and screaming. A near-riot formed on the library steps, and packed a block of N Street between 36th and 37th St. Police lined street corners, some on horses. Moshing and crowd surfing lasted about an hour. Non-stop chanting of "Hoya Saxa." "Fuck Ohio State." "Roy Roy Roy Roy..." "Jeff Green's Mom." (I'm unclear about the significance of that last one). Fireworks went off; sparklers lighted. Hoyas hung out of townhouse windows. Then somebody yelled "run down M Street," and a massive stampede was born.
Students charged both sides of the streets like mad. Cars stopped on M Street and drivers high-fived runners weaving in between them. A few passengers in flashier cars were yelling at cops when Hoyas joyously slapped their windows and almost climbed onto their hoods. The herd lingered at the Wisconsin Ave and M St. intersection, until someone yelled "the White House." Nobody questioned. We all adapted the mob mentality and ran.
By the time we reached Foggy Bottom, a portion of the herd trailed off. But it all evened out when a few GW students and anonymous pedestrians joined the celebratory sprint. Hundreds made it to the north facade of the White House and lined the fence, chanting "speech!" Lights on the front lawn came on, and security guards came out in droves. They told us to get off the fence, and eventually made everyone leave. But we stayed long enough to sing the Georgetown fight song and shout "Hoya Saxa" on repeat mode. A few Iraq allusions, and much more love for Roy Hibbert. Even the Star-Spangled Banner got in there.
The herd walked (maybe comfortably jogged) the way back, lined by a bumper-to-bumper row of police cars, vans and motorcycles. They honked and yelled into megaphones, making sure we stayed on the sidewalk. But that didn't really happen. The best was when they said "Are you a vehicle or a pedestrian? Get out of the street." A few students grabbed orange traffic cones and stole chairs from outdoor restaurants along Pennsylvania Ave. Some even climbed up the Clark Mills equestrian statue at the center of Washington Circle. Throughout the night, there was a constant flow of bodies between Georgetown's campus and the White House.
The herd was arguably pretty civil and pacifist. No burning or flipping over of cars. After Friday's game, when a small fire blazed outside a campus dorm, police were pretty concerned, fearing a repeat performance at the White House last night. All we really wanted was a wave from George.
Today our campus is dressed up with blue balloons. Outrageous rumors about tomorrow's ticket sales are rampant. Some say the school has 300. Others claim 1,000. Either way, many Hoyas are crafting plans to camp outside the McDonough gym all night. And networking like crazy to snag rides to Atlanta for this weekend's game.
Though few actually know what it means, Hoya Saxa feels pretty good to say right now.
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Hysterical.
Georgetown students do this, and it's all smiles and fun.
If a horde of Terp fans decided to overrun Route 1 in College Park (like we used to), the authorities would call the National Guard.
Weak
Ah, the future W's of America. Call us when you decide to burn down M St.
imagine if that was a Howard crowd. MPD would make Tiennamen Pie out of anything north of high yellow
Man, if you don't know what Jeff Green's Mom means, you should not be allowed to graduate......
How many of these people actually follow and understand basketball and arent just mindless Gtown supporters or just oing with the crowd
For the rest of us..
"Felicia's cult-celeb status is mostly something that she has earned: She is at every home game, wearing the same sea-blue, number 32 Hoyas jersey, with "Green" custom-stitched onto the back. She's an animated fan, and in Jeff's first year, she says, "I had my sign that said, 'No. 32, My Son, Jeff Green.' I started getting my props ever since then.""
So, what would you suggest instead, we all celebrate by sitting around having tea and discussing the finer points of ncaa technicalities? I think most people "understand basketball" enough to know that we won and what the phrase "FINAL FOUR" means.
I personally think it's great that we ran all the way to the white house and back. Why the hell not? We're in the final four for the first time in twenty years for god's sake.
And yeah, the cops were trying to get us off the street and stop what we were doing. I saw one police truck actually run into a few people at low speeds to try to force us to move. But we didn't move, and we had an awesome time.
I don't think tea parties are the answer, but stealing chairs from restaurants clearly isn't it either.
(Just to be clear, I'm not saying that you personally stole -- or, let's be kind, "moved" -- chairs, but based on the above account some did.)
College riots ideally should be fun enough for the students to think they're getting away with something while not actually causing any real serious damage. I'd say this one was a pretty good balance. Terps swing a little too far into the actual danger zone with their revelry. But I like the idea of storming down to the white house and celebrating as only a DC school can.
Seriously, CDTrave? You're making an argument as to what a college riot should or shouldn't be?
They just plain shouldn't be.
Dog, way to go. Don't let those cops scare you out of...standing up for...your....rights? to...
whatever, just remember, when they come to take you away, go limp; don't resist but don't go willingly either.
When the Georgetown kids' "celebration" leads to fires and vandalism that cause several hundred thousand dollars worth of damage to the community and they still don't get in trouble for it, THEN you can start bitching about a double standard, Colonel K. UMD students brought the glare of the authorities upon themselves: trying to pretend it's some kind of class or favoritism issue is a total crock.
Also:
The only thing more ridiculous than a sports fan bitching about the fact that people celebrating his team's victory aren't "true fans" is a hipster-type royally pissed off because his favorite band is becoming popular. Get over yourselves.
Who gives a shit? It's a *ball game*, kids. None of those douches walking down the street did a damn thing worth celebrating.
You know the funny thing? Gtown has always had decent basketball, but the Mason kids didn't nearly so riled up when they went to the final 4, And that school has something like 5x the students. Well good for you gorgetown showing Mason how they should have celebrated!
storming the white house with hundreds of other hoyas will be among some of my most memorable moments at georgetown. The celebration (for the students anyway) meant more than merely returning to the final four. It was an overwhelming unified show of school spirit that is rarely displayed and it was certainly a real treat.
It was not without victims however, I am a grad student there, was on campus watching the game and those undergrad assholes got on top of my jetta and proceeded to jump up and down on it. Now I am looking at thousands of dollars of damage and ruining my entire month. I gotta pay the deductible out of my own pocket, while these spoiled brats go and ruin someone else's day. Being a Bruin as well, all I can say at this point is UCLA ALL THE WAY!!!
Were you even on campus when GMU made it to the final 4? The whole campus was flooded in green and gold. We had tons and tons of pep ralleys and the lines to get a commerative t-shirt were over an hour long.
Yes I was at mason when that happened, and I didn't see anything NEARLY as crazy as the storming of M st, unless you want to bring up the couple freshmen at the park who set a mattress on fire.. lame. The organized homecoming at Patriot center? boring. Yeah it was exciting, and students responded by driving around patriot circle, but come on, mason has nearly 30,000 students. The turn out and celebration does NOT compare.
Emily - That's what happens when you go to a commuter school with no history of success at the sport. People don't care. Anyone whose gone to Mason will tell you that other than that blip there is virtually no school spirit at Mason. At Georgetown basketball is an important part of our identity. That's a pretty big distinction that you're missing.
ObviouslyDoesn'tGetIt calling people douches for celebrating their team's victory and trip to the F4 = classy, UNC fan?
Tyler Ahn, the grad student whose Jetta was damaged...I bet if it had been a Passat they would have left it alone. UCLA? are you also a Yankee fan? what a joke. the vast majority of the "spoiled brats" at Gtown are on need based scholarships and bust their ass to pay back their loans after graduation, I understand there are some wealthy kids, but blanket statements and stereotypes are only ways to pamper your misfortune. did it work? your car is still effed so i bet not
anyway, if disin' on these kids school spirit, tradition and celebration makes you feel better about yourselves, keep on keepin' on
as for you HOYA fans, i'll see you on saturday night and again on Monday night!!!
HOYA SAXA!!!!
(this time, watch out for those luxury sedans with CA plates)