It’s only natural to reflect on the past year as the spring semester draws to a close, one that will be remembered for the historic Inauguration many were lucky enough to be in D.C. to experience.

For sports-loving Hoyas, though, this year will be remembered more for its misfortune. We’ve had to live in a city suffering one of the most horrific stretches of athletic ineptitude in recent memory. Whether crushing fans’ spirits with epic collapses or nightly displays of incompetence, the District’s sports teams rarely failed to disappoint.

Seeing little playing time for the Georgetown Hoyas throughout his college career, Sead Dizdarevic wasn’t exactly a superstar on the basketball court. His greatest accomplishment might have been riding the bench in his final season as the Hoyas advanced to the 2007 Final Four. Despite his low profile during his collegiate career, after graduation Dizdarevic found a way to contribute both on and off the court.

North Carolina-Duke, Cal-Stanford, Army-Navy. These rivalries define college sports, making a normal game feel like a championship, ratcheting up the intensity and placing bragging rights on the line. With the Big East women’s lacrosse tournament beginning this Friday, the Hoyas are ready to face their own bitter foe, hoping to steal the coveted conference title from the Syracuse Orange.

Thirteen points, eleven assists, ten blocks, and fifteen rebounds in one game is what the basketball world calls a quadruple double—one of the sport’s rarest feats. Jerrelle Benimon, a 6’8” power forward from Fauquier High School in Warrenton, Virginia, accumulated those statistics. Benimon is the newest addition to the Hoyas men’s basketball team.

Lacrosse is a foreign concept to me. I grew up in the bucolic, mountainous wasteland of western North Carolina, where the idea of “sports” starts with football in the fall and ends with basketball in the winter. The warmer months are reserved exclusively for fishing and NASCAR. In my neck of the woods, lacrosse wasn’t just un-American, like soccer, tennis, or socialism—it didn’t even exist.

The life of a college athlete can be hectic, to say the least. With practice and games, not to mention a full schedule of classes, athletes can hardly be blamed for not finding the time to get out into the community.

My life as I know it is officially over.

Recently, after haggling, begging, and cajoling, I finally convinced my sainted mother to buy me MLBtv. Little did she know, my educational downfall would begin as soon as I clicked the “submit payment” button on the Web site.

“Can the freshmen deliver?” “Will they buckle under the intense pressure?” These are concerns that renowned commentators such as Dick Vitale and Clark Kellogg highlight during every March Madness. There seems to be a commonly accepted notion in sports that young players lack the experience and composure necessary to thrive in high-pressure situations. Yet there have been exceptions throughout athletic history—just look at Michael Jordan. If you ask Hoya softball coach, Pat Conlan, though, you would probably add another name to that list: Cara Savarese

Spring is slowly making its way north to Georgetown, which means the reemergence of a classic stress-reliever: lawn sports. As lacrosse stumbles down the stretch and the basketball team disintegrates, Hoyas of all ages gather on the lawn to enjoy the, ahem, clement spring weather. In the event that the weather does turn around and we actually get springtime temperatures before the end of the year, I offer you a short guide to what you might encounter on the lawn between White Gravenor and the concrete fortress that passes for a library.

The campus community was treated to some pleasant news on Wednesday: Greg “The Doctrine” Monroe will be returning to Georgetown for his sophomore season.