On the Home Front: Georgetown Basketball, D.C. Statehood

After 13 seasons, coach John Thompson III of Georgetown University is gone. He had some good seasons, but in college basketball your worth and value seem to be determined by how you did this season.

This season was bad. Really bad: 14 and 18. The year before: 15 and 18.

I never thought I would hear “Fire Thompson” at a Georgetown home game. But that is exactly what happened toward the end. Still, I’m surprised. I thought the looming presence of Big John Thompson would prevent any departure for his son.

I must say I have some genuine sympathy for Thompson III. The father would not let him coach without “adult supervision.” Big John was at practice and insisted on sitting on the bench during the games. Who would want that?

Winning a national championship in 1984 was a very big deal, but that was 33 years ago. A clean break from the Thompson era was needed and hopefully will now begin with the hiring of Patrick Ewing.

Maybe, just maybe, Georgetown University will once again renew its traditional rivalry with GW. They haven’t played in decades (Dec. 16, 1981, at the Cap Center).

Council member Jack Evans has introduced a resolution that would inaugurate the Ward 2 Classic. That has a nice civic ring to it. George Washington vs. Georgetown. One game. Every year. One year in Foggy Bottom, the following year at the Verizon Center.

Each venue would be packed. It would be loud and raucous — an event that students and alums would anticipate and savor every year.

Another important matter on the home front: D.C. statehood. I know you are tiring of the subject, but I’m not letting it go. Quite simply, it’s an existential issue.

A few weeks ago, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton announced to a battery of cameras that she was introducing a D.C. statehood bill. She claimed to have 133 co-sponsors. But not one of them appeared at the announcement.

To make matters worse, she brought with her Sen. Tom Carper (D-Delaware). She hailed him as our “champion.” What a strange and peculiar word for someone who introduced the 2014 D.C. statehood bill to use. That bill went to the committee Carper chaired and he could not produce even one fellow Democrat at the hearing.

Carper never asked any of the uncommitted Democrats to vote for the bill. Needless to say, the bill went nowhere, even though at the time the Dems were in the majority.

Norton and Carper: co-conspirators in a con. And we are the victims.