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Part Two: Opening Doors
For a program which once placed heavy duct tape between the doors at McDonough Gymnasium so students or guests couldn't peak into practice, transparency has not always been a hallmark of Georgetown Basketball. This is a memory of the past, not a blueprint for its future.
Long-time fans know that there was a time when Georgetown's close-knit ways were to its advantage, and that eventually it wasn't. An unofficial mantra of WWJD ("What Would John [Thompson] Do?") continued through his next three predecessors over almost 25 years when it didn't always need to. "Change" was a four letter word to some in the basketball office, which in part is what led Georgetown to make the changes it did this past spring.
For Ed Cooley to "respect legacy" does not mean to repeat it, but create a new narrative from which to build back, better. This means, in part, to reach out to groups who it has ignored or underinvested in the past, and promote positive relationships to drive potential and promise. As the title above indicates, it means opening some doors (and maybe even some windows) to clear the air, moving beyond past perceptions onto a new landscape in the sport at Georgetown and those who lead it.
Coach Cooley and his staff cannot rebuild the program on their own. Building bridges is an important means of getting there.
The longstanding reputation of Georgetown as a closed shop was no secret across the region's high school and prep programs. Whether by accident, design, or worse, by casual indifference, high school and AAU coaches were kept at more than arm's length by past occupants of the basketball office, and the results were legion: good players left the area and were champions elsewhere.
A 30 mile radius from Georgetown University contains some of the best prep talent anywhere in the nation and Coach Cooley knows it--after all, he recruited the area too. Patrick Ewing was never going to compete by signing the Chris Sodoms and Jalen Harrises of the world when talent within minutes of the campus were often missed or ignored. Communication between Georgetown and coaches of high school and AAU programs in the area often seemed missing at best and abandoned at worst. How many high school coaches have even visited the Thompson Center? How many AAU coaches would be invited to a practice or have a one on one with the staff to understand what Georgetown is looking for?
That was then. Now, the opportunity is right there to change the narrative.
Yes, it's the narrative. The Georgetown narrative in the prep ranks is not a good one, even though many of these coaches are familiar with better days past. If a player could stay home, get a great education, and excel in basketball, it's a win-win for everyone. For too long, however, GU wasn't that place, but it certainly can be.
High school and AAU coaches play an important role in identifying and encouraging prospects to consider colleges. Any prior attitude of "don't call us, we'll call you" from the basketball office must be wiped clean in favor of a new narrative and a new rapport with local coaches at a minimum, and with high school and AAU coaches across the region. If Ed Cooley isn't setting up calls and meetings with every major high school program he can this summer in his version of the TMZ, he's missing out, and so is the program.
So too, a new narrative must be reset with press coverage of the team. Years... no, decades of a needlessly adversarial relationship with reporters took its toll, and as the program slumped, the local press did not slam the Hoyas to the wall as it would in other cities, it simply didn't bother to cover them.
A hundred or more years of regular Washington Post coverage devolved into wire copy recaps by the end of the 2022-23 season, without a dedicated full time reporter to cover even home games. Local TV stations have largely given up on regular coverage, and the GU student press had been bullied into submission, with at least one student sportswriter expressing the concern that asking too many critical questions could result in losing all press rights to cover the team.
The scope of Patrick Ewing's press coverage was an annual pre-season talk with John Fanta, a half hour with the WJFK Sports Junkies, post-game press scrums, and two abbreviated seasons of "Center Court with Patrick Ewing", a satellite radio entry for those who subscribed to it. None of it reached a critical mass of followers. Ewing was never seen as an accessible figure in the press but Ed Cooley is, and the need for this coach to reestablish GU in the eyes and ears of local sports media is a pressing issue this season.
Even if journalism isn't a driver of interest it once was, the need for Cooley to promote his vision of Hoya basketball can and should find an open mind and an interested view from local reporters, who in their own way can elevate the visibility of the Hoyas to audiences which have frankly forgotten about them.
So too with national coverage. The orbit of Big East coverage is more than simply Fox Sports 1, but an orbit of various free lance reporters, podcasters and recruiting analysts that are old enough to remember when Georgetown was good, but not afraid to tell their audiences where they are now. The sports business never misses to sell stories of redemption, or the long climb back, and this is a redemption story worth telling. If Ed Cooley wants a full house at Capital One Arena, he also needs a full house in the press room too.
Some of these efforts are a matter of basic outreach. Some come with a little more of a heavy lift.
Despite being the first college athletic program to establish an online presence way back in 1996, Georgetown has not embraced social media as have so many other schools. It was not a priority in the John Thompson III era, it was not in the Patrick Ewing era, and the numbers reflect it. In February 2023, just 41,600 followers across each of the three major vehicles for social media (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) connected with Georgetown basketball. If that sounds like a lot, it really isn't.
In 2022-23, Duke had over one million followers on Instagram alone. In the Big East, the Georgetown online following is a fraction of many schools within the league: at Villanova, its 133,000 followers contributed over 292,000 interactions (a follow, a like, or a reply) in the month of February 2023; at UConn, its 109,000 followers were not far behind. Georgetown did not rank among the top 100 schools nationally in a report from Skull Sparks, a marketing firm which tracks social media interactions in college athletics. The 100th ranked school, Fordham, had just over 29,000 interactions with a basketball base of just 6,125 followers.
Granted, the month of February was not a great month for the Hoyas and not all those interactions were, shall we say, positive. It goes without saying, however, that the cost of acquisition for a new social media follower is marginal and the reach is extensive. The concentric circles of support - 6,500 undergraduates, 14,000 graduate students, 44,000 DC area alumni, 220,000 alumni worldwide, a DC metro population exceeding six million - are a veritable gold mine of potential followers, untapped loyalty, and future philanthropy.
Adding the secret sauce of active followers to a marketing campaign is a powerful tool for the entire program. Instead of a photo and a game score, offer a 30 second interview on Instagram, a Twitter Spaces talk with a coach, or simply offer some free tickets for the next game direct to fans--real time, with real impact.
The under-30 audience is not coming to GUHoyas.com to interact. When Taylor Swift wants to announce something to her dedicated fan base (which numbers more than 262 million followers on Instagram), she doesn't need a press release or a television appearance to get the word out. More people get their news on the NBA from social media (80 million followers) than subscribe to ESPN on cable television (76 million).
If Ed Cooley wants to fill Capital One Arena, a blast e-mail or a series of billboards at Metro stops isn't the answer anymore. Forget "turn on, tune in", 2023 is really all about the three Es: "engage, empower, and elevate". This all starts with the base.
But who is the base, really? It's not just students or alumni, and certainly not just season ticket holders or the Hoya Hoop Club membership. In Part 3 of this series, let's talk about who the base of Cooley's "Hoya Nation" really is, and now that the doors are opening, how to welcome them in.
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