Georgetown Hoyas
The University admits that the precise origin of the term "Hoya" is unknown. At some point before 1893, and likely before 1891, students versed in classical languages combined the Greek "hoia" or "hoya", meaning "what" or "such", and the Latin "saxa" to form "Hoya Saxa!", or "What Rocks!" This cheer may either refer to the stalwart defense of the football team, or to the baseball team, which was nicknamed the "Stonewalls", or to the actual stone wall that surrounds the campus. Father William McFadden, S.J., campus Jesuit and the team's in-house announcer at the Capital One Arena, has disputed the Greek and Latin origin, suggesting the classical words were retroactively applied to a nonsensical cheer.
After World War I, the term "Hoya" was increasingly used on campus, including for the newspaper and the school mascot. In 1920, students began publishing the campus's first sports newspaper under the name "The Hoya", after successfully petitioning the Dean of the College to use it instead of the proposed name, "The Hilltopper". "Hilltoppers" was also a name sometimes used for the sports teams. By the fall of 1928, the newspaper had taken to referring to the sports teams as the Hoyas. This was influenced by a popular half time show at football games, where the mascot, a dog nicknamed "Hoya," would entertain fans.
Georgetown Hoyas
The sailing team competes in the Middle Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association (MAISA) of the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA). Under coach Mike Callahan has been ranked number 1 nationally in the ICSA Sailing World College Rankings on multiple occasions. The team sails from the Washington Sailing Marina Andrew Campbell was named U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) Male Sailing Athlete of the Year in 2002 and 2005, and ICSA College Sailor of the Year in 2006. He is one of the six team members awarded as College Sailors of the Year on seven occasions, as Nevin Snow has taken the prize twice, in 2015 and 2016. Campbell helped lead the team to the first of their 14 Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association National Championships since 2001, and are the reigning national co-ed champions . During this time the team also won seven MAISA conference championships, known as the America Trophy. After the team's 2013 national championship, they were invited to participate in the 2014 World University Match Racing Championships in Trentino, Italy, on Lago di Ledro, which they won 7–1, besting nineteen teams from fourteen countries. The Hoyas won the Leonard M. Fowle Trophy to the best overall collegiate team in 2006.