Georgetown's Newspaper Of Record Since 1920
Bob Benson Has Hoya Football
Shooting For The Sky
By Brian FinchReprinted with permission
But then again, he doesn't have to. Looks alone tell it all: he is young.
"With his golden blonde, clean-cut hair, a clean shaven face and a boyish smirk that takes the place of a smile, Benson looks more like a collegiate athlete that a 10 year veteran in the ranks of collegiate football coaching.
Not only am I young, I look young," says Benson, always prepared to quip about his youthfulness, never shying away from humor. "I look like I'm 12, and I probably act like it."
At age 31, Benson is the youngest head coach in Division I football. Yet behind the age and even younger appearance is a football coach whose experience goes well beyond his age. In just his fourth season as a head coach, Benson is considered to have one of the collegiate game's most promising futures.
"Bob's one of the great young collegiate football coaches in the country," said Albany State football coach Jack Ford, who hired Benson in 1986, at the age of 21, as a graduate assistant from the University of Vermont. "He has an insatiable desire to get better, and a great football mind."
In his three years on the Hilltop, Benson has rebuilt and redefined football at Georgetown. And in doing so, he has brought an excitement and sense of promise that Hoya football has not had since the waning glory days of Georgetown football in the 1940's.
In his first four years in Division I-AA, Benson's teams have posted a combined 22-15 mark, including a 6-3 record in 1995 and 7-3 in 1996, the team's best record since 1978.
In Benson's eyes, however, the stats say little. "I want to win," Benson says, "and that's not going 6-3. That doesn't cut it with me. I want to win
year in and year out."
Benson came to the Hilltop in May of 1993, and was given the task of transforming what was a Division III football team into
a Division I-AA football program modeled after the Ivy and Patriot leagues of the northeast. It was no small task. Never before had Georgetown
actively recruited football athletes, and the coach Benson was replacing, Scott Glacken, was the only head coach the Hoyas had since
Georgetown entered the Division III ranks in 1970. Any sort of reputation as a nationally recognized football program had to be built from the ground up.
In many respects, the hiring of Benson was a gamble for the University. At the time, he was just 28 years old and had never held a head coaching position.
As defensive coordinator at Johns Hopkins University between 1990 and 1992, he had helped resurrect a program from consecutive 1-9 campaigns to three straight winning seasons,
but whether the could take over a team and successfully take it to a higher level of play remained unanswered.
Benson immediately built the Georgetown program around fundamentals--solid recruiting, smart coaching and studying the game.
He calls it the "grind work". He would prefer walking around campus or taking to the field with his team. But the work, off the field,
and in the office, watching game films, making calls to recruits' homes or taking notes for next season, is what has made the difference
during his year's at Georgetown and what has been at the forefront of the program's success.
"All I know is that we've attempted to make what I feel are positive changes. I am a very positive person, I'm a very straightforward person, and
I definitely have beliefs in what I feel is the right way to do something, " Benson says.
Beyond the experience he has gained over his years as head coach, though, expectations always remain higher, partly through the expectations Benson sets for himself.
"I think anytime my name is behind something--like, there is Bob Benson, I'm the football coach--my name is beside the win loss record.
Going into [last season] I think I was 15-12. That burns me to see those 12 losses. That crushes me because that means I am a just an average
coach...That's not getting it done, and that's not acceptable."
His tone when speaking on his personal accomplishments at Georgetown is somewhat harsh, but also sincere.
When it comes to football, mediocrity simply is not in the playbook for Benson. That includes mediocrity that uses youth as an excuse.
"I've said since the first day I arrived here, I am not going to apologize for my age. It has nothing to do with my ability. It has nothing
to do with my ability to work with people. It's got nothing to do with my work ethic.
"I think it actually helps me relate to people that are 18 to 21. I have a pretty good grasp of what goes on in everyday life on and off
the field and I think it only helps me relate to our kids."
The understanding Benson has developed of his players, as well as the game, are at the core of Georgetown's new found success at the Division I
level. And his experiences have taught him to keep at his relentless effort.
"What has happened here is this has become a Division I-AA program. The program is a year-round process, which we have to work different aspects 12 months a year.
"We've come a long way here because we've had to learn to win, but I think it's taken a nice path."
"Bob's one of the great young collegiate football coaches in the country"--Jack Ford, Albany State football coach
But considering Benson entered an unestablished Division I football coaching job when he started with Georgetown, Benson's first years of stats
say a lot.
"We will not be out-coached here. I say to my coaches all the time, 'Let's not be out-coached.
We want our kids prepared. We want every advantage we can have," Benson says. "And I think
that goes in recruiting, too. When you're recruiting against the Ivy League and the Patriot League, you
have to do the extra work, and we believe in that."
"When you're recruiting against the Ivy League and the Patriot League, you
have to do the extra work, and we believe in that."