I know a lot of you out there don’t think very much of Craig Esherick. You’re all entitled to your opinion, but seeing that today is his 51st birthday, I felt that a little defense was in order. Esherick got a bit of a raw deal as head coach of the Hoyas. His final season as the Hoyas coach was a catastrophic disaster. There’s no denying that. However, help was on the way. Esherick recruited Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert. We’ll never know if he would’ve taken that group of players to the Final Four, but he probably deserved one season with those key players he brought in. No matter what people thought of him as a Coach, his reign is over, and it’s time to let go of the hate. Plus, there are a lot of good things about him that everybody can agree on.

First, he was a good player and a very good shooter for the Hoyas. He is famous for making a half court shot in McDonough to force overtime in his senior season, but I know that he took much more pride in another buzzer-beater he had a few weeks later. In the NIT semifinals, the Hoyas were rallying from behind against North Carolina State. Georgetown trailed by two in the final seconds of regulation when Esherick received a pass on the baseline. He knocked down a turnaround jumper from about 18-feet to force overtime. Craig was happiest that no one could call that one lucky.

Turning to his coaching career, don’t forget that Esherick was a 17-year assistant to John Thompson, including during the National Championship season in 1984. And there are also a lot of fun memories from when he was the head coach. His first game ever was a very memorable day, as the Hoyas beat Providence at the MCI Center. After the game, amidst a standing ovation from the fans, Esherick was smiling and waving to one of the luxury boxes, where John Thompson was watching with delight. The Hoyas defeated Syracuse in the quarterfinals of the 2000 Big East tournament, becoming the first #9 seed to ever defeat the #1 seed in tournament history. A week later, Georgetown won a classic triple-overtime game at the University of Virginia. And of course, arguably the acme of his coaching career was the NCAA Tournament victory over Arkansas, courtesy of the last second shot by Nathaniel Burton.

In January of 1999, at the press conference when he was named head coach of the Hoyas, Esherick said, “I consider myself a great fool to follow in [John Thompson’s] footsteps … no matter what happens, I know I was a very good assistant coach.” It seems like he was right on both counts.