| | By Jay Bilas
Special to ESPN.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- For 24 years, Craig Esherick has been a part of Georgetown basketball. First as a player, then an assistant coach, and now, as the Hoyas head coach.
He has spent his entire coaching career in one place, something that is quite rare in such a nomadic profession. He can thank his predecessor, John Thompson, for his stability and for keeping him in the nation's capital.
It was Thompson that gave Esherick his start in coaching, offering him a position when Esherick was in law school. Two years ago, it was Thompson that made it possible for Esherick to be a Division I head coach when the Hall of Fame coach resigned suddenly.
|  | | Craig Esherick is determined to get the Hoyas back in the NCAA Tournament after a three-year absence. |
"It's very unusual that I have never moved. I don't know of many coaches that have stayed on one place for an entire career," Esherick said in a Georgetown restaurant, sitting near several members of Washington's power class. "In fact, I only know of one -- John Thompson."
Ironically, Esherick never intended to get into college coaching. As a graduate of Georgetown Law and member of the D.C. Bar, the 43-year-old was headed into the world of litigation, not big-time college basketball.
"I was planning to work for David Falk or go into a big firm," admits Esherick. "But, as a part of the learning process, I found out that I really wanted to coach.
"After my third or fourth year as an assistant, I knew I wanted to be a head coach. I found that I enjoyed it more and more. I had three opportunities at head coaching positions (at other schools), but turned away from them all for one reason or another."
Now, as Esherick enters his second full season as Georgetown's head coach, Thompson continues to impact his succesor's career. Indirectly, the coach who won 596 games in 27 seasons on the Hoyas sidelines as he has made it next to impossible for anyone to match the high standard set during the era of Hoya Paranoia.
Esherick, who has a manner of quiet confidence about him, seems to take any talk of measuring up to Thompson in stride. He appears humbly unfazed by it all.
"I am not here to project myself as being my own man. I embrace the
tradition I have been a part of, and that Coach Thompson built. I use it
to Georgetown's advantage," Esherick said. "I don't care whether people see
me as my own man, because there is no Craig Esherick tradition. I want to
build on what Coach Thompson built."
While Esherick is self-assured in who he is as a person, he was not always so secure about the position he now holds.
"After he told me that he was stepping down, I literally did not eat for three days," said Esherick, who admits it took a month to make the adjustment to being the Georgetown head coach. "My wife thought I had gone crazy. But after weighing whether I wanted to follow Coach Thompson, and all that it would entail, I was left with the fact that, wherever you go, you are
still expected to win."
Therein lies the rub.
Winning is the standard everywhere, but especially at Georgetown after Thompson. Esherick was an assistant when
Georgetown was the baddest, meanest team on the block, when Hoya Paranoia
was at its apex, and Georgetown was feared.
"My second and third year as an assistant, we were in the national championship game, and won it all in
1984," Esherick said. "Maybe I was spoiled by that, because I learned how
difficult that really is."
But Esherick remembers the glory days of Hoya basketball, and the feelings it evokes.
"We won some games because of it," Esherick said of the Hoya intimidation. "I remember people stopping to
watch our guys warm up, to see if we were really human."
Back in the days of Floyd, Ewing, Dikembe and Mourning, the NCAA Tournament was a foregone conclusion. Georgetown went to 14 straight NCAA Tournament from 1979-92, and was part of 18 of 19 tournaments until 1997.
"I have watched the Selection Show on that Sunday knowing that we were a No. 1 seed, and knowing we were to overall No. 1 seed in the entire tournament," Esherick recalls. "And I can tell you, it's a helluva feeling."
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Behind the Paranoia
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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When I asked Craig Esherick what "Hoya Paranoia" really meant, he replied
simply that it was John Thompson's way to honor the request of Patrick Ewing
not to do interviews. It seems Ewing was a private person who did not want
interviews to take away from being a student.
As a result, Georgetown practices were closed and kept as a sanctuary. Esherick said "Hoya Paranoia" was misreported and misunderstood, and was not near the factor people assumed it was.
However, it did win Georgetown some games in the 1980s. There were times when the Hoyas intimidated an opponent so badly that the team was wholly unprepared to compete against Georgetown.
If "Hoya Paranoia" was misunderstood, what about the tales I heard about
Georgetown's locker room and pickup games in McDonough being off limits to
any outsiders, especially players from other schools?
Esherick laughed, and said, "Well, that's true. That is our locker room, and we protect it. We make very few exceptions to that rule."
The exceptions? Magic Johnson, Steve Francis and Rod Strickland. Everyone else is out of luck, unless you played at Georgetown.
-- Jay Bilas
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But since losing to Charlotte in the first round of the '97 tournament, the Hoyas haven't been back to the Dance. And these days, Esherick knows the polar opposite feeling of watching the Selection Show when the outcome isn't so predictable or positive.
"I made the team watch (the Selection Show)," Esherick said of his motivational decision. "When you're hoping, 'Please pick us,' while you watch it, that's a terrible feeling. You hope and pray someone puts you in the field. It's a very tough day for me. I hated watching it."
That's why, when asked his goals for this year's team, Esherick clearly and succinctly states, "To make the
Tournament."
He only hopes his players have felt exactly the same way the past two years in front of the television -- devastated. "If they did, I know we will make the Tournament this season."
Captains Kevin Braswell and Ruben Boumtje Boumtje said they felt exactly as their coach, and do not
want ignominy of leaving Georgetown without having made the NCAA Tournament.
"The Selection Show was painful to watch, and we did feel as bad. The seniors with me have never made it to the NCAAs, and it is a challenge we must meet," said Boumtje Boumtje. "We definitely talk about it, and we have talked about whether it is a curse or something."
Braswell agrees.
"I was 75 percent sure we wouldn't make it, because of the games we lost, but our win over
Syracuse got my hopes up," Braswell said of last year's omission from the NCAAs. "When you are told you are not one of the teams selected, that really hurts. It was very upsetting."
To drive home those feeling, and to make sure it lasts, Esherick stripped the team bulletin board of all postings and put up a special reminder to motivate his team. The bulletin board is in the bathroom area, where it is least likely to be missed, and displays only the Hoyas' NIT banner from 2000.
"I'll take it down when I feel like we're playing like an NCAA team," said Esherick of a team that's played in the past three NITs.
The NIT banner has not gone unnoticed, and has generated a great deal of discussion.
"I want to get rid of it," says Boumtje Boumtje. "I want to see an NCAA banner. The temptation is to rip it down, but we
have to deserve to take it down."
Braswell has strong feelings about his coach's reminder as well.
"It makes me sick," said Braswell, shaking his head. "I get so tired of hearing about the NIT. I can't wait until March
so I can go in and tear that thing down."
Braswell can foresee a race to the bathroom after the 2001 Selection Show, all of the Hoyas racing to
relieve the NIT banner from its place of dishonor. "I hope I'll be the first one there to get it down. We'll all want a part of that."
Esherick is convinced Georgetown can accomplish its goal of getting
back to the Tournament for the first time since 1997.
"We're deeper and taller than we've been," he said of the 2001 Hoyas. "But I don't think we
can win big unless our guards play well, by shooting a good percentage,
making good decision and limiting turnovers. Our guards will make us or
break us.
"Braswell is our best guard, and maybe our best player. He will be very important for us."
Braswell, for one, is up to the challenge.
"We have better energy this season, including me," Braswell said. "I can't explain it, but we're starting to get it back. Everyone is helping out and playing hard."
Esherick believes his team is sufficiently motivated to replace their decorative bathroom banner with one that says NCAA. Should the Hoyas learn to win the close games, and do a better job of working for good shots that
they can hit, this team has the ability to end the NCAA drought in March.
Until then, forgive the Hoyas if they seem a bit paranoid about the postseason. | |
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