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GMU Bandwagon At Overflow Capacity
Patriots forward Sammy Hernandez signs an autograph for Martha Lagerberg after he was surrounded by fans as he walked through the George W. Johnson Center on the Fairfax campus.
(By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)
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Jane Quill, a real estate broker for Re-Max who received a master's degree from George Mason, said it was a sure bet that the school's new prominence would boost property values in Fairfax County.
"Schools have a tremendous impact on real estate values," she said.
The locus of activity yesterday was the George W. Johnson Center, where students packed the food court at midday to watch a replay of the U-Conn. game. A few faces were etched with anxiety, as if the final score might somehow come out differently.
On the first level of the bookstore, a few feet above Clare, a line of about 250 people awaiting the first shipment of Final Four T-shirts snaked its way outside into the sunny afternoon. Two thousand shirts were frantically turned out overnight Sunday, with thousands more due in today.
Brandon Smith, 22, a senior finance major worried about an exam today "with about 8 billion formulas to remember," said he wouldn't be anywhere else.
"We're finally on the map," said Smith, a tad weary after being routed from bed by two bogus fire alarms, most likely pulled by revelers Sunday night at his Potomac Heights dorm. "Just the publicity the school is getting is awesome."
The effusive spirit was not confined to Fairfax. On satellite campuses in Prince William and Loudoun counties, students who normally toil with a feeling of detachment said yesterday they felt less remote.
"Now people know there is something called George Mason," said Suba Iyer, 26, eating lunch with three other bioscience students in the cafeteria on the office-parkish campus in Prince William.
And throughout official Virginia, it was a day to get right with George. In Richmond, where the General Assembly convened yesterday for a special session to discuss transportation, legislators competed to show their loyalty to George Mason.
Sporting a green Mason hat, Sen. James K. "Jay" O'Brien Jr. (R-Fairfax) took to the Senate floor to lord the Northern Virginia's school good fortunes over his colleagues.
"As you're thinking about all that traffic going to Northern Virginia, and I know how you feel about that . . . but that's where George Mason University is," he thundered. "We could not be more proud."
Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R-Fairfax), who received a master's and law degree from GMU, said he was "seriously contemplating" dying his hair green and yellow if the Patriots win the national championship.
Fairfax supervisors brought their George Mason caps to their bimonthly meeting yesterday and passed a resolution inviting the Patriots to visit. Supervisor Elaine N. McConnell (R-Springfield) said she hoped the county would hold a parade for the team "when" they win the NCAA championship.
The surge of devotion brought some eye-rolling from longtime fans, who wondered where all the arrivistes were when George Mason was not even a household name in Fairfax.
Scanning the crush at the Johnson Center, Jennifer Nemecek, 21, a senior majoring in psychology and communications, said: "I don't think a lot of these people even realized we had a basketball team."
Staff writers Michael Alison Chandler, Maria Glod, Rosalind S. Helderman, Stephanie McCrummen and Lisa Rein contributed to this report.
