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… Or is it “Hoiah”?
By John Gearan '65
And now we interrupt this ballgame for an important public service announcement …
As loyal alums, we have all stood at Fitton Field and other arenas of Crusader combat, bellowing out in unison our favorite College fight song: “Give another hoya and a choo-choo, rah-rah, choo-choo, rah-rah for Holy Cross …”
In singing, of course, spelling doesn’t count. So you don’t think much about it or contemplate what exactly a “hoya” is anyway. Who cares! Fight songs are part of a college’s tradition, which you basically learn through phonics. There is never any pop quiz after the game.
I’ve been singing and humming hoyas and choo-choos for more than a half century: from the days my dad Paul, Class of ’27, would bring me to every football game and tiddly wink match as a kid; right through my four years (1961-1965), during my son Paul’s four years at The Cross (1983-1987), and while covering Holy Cross games for many more seasons with the Worcester Telegram.
Now, alas, I have learned spelling may indeed count.
This column kicked off in the summer 2005. Its title, “Give Another Hoya,’’ was selected after deep consultation with esteemed editor, Jack O’Connell, and other Purple Pooh-Bahs of the written word.
Until now, “Hoya” has traipsed along its merry way unnoticed. Alums have read through the title without so much as an uncomfortable twitch.
Then, out of a purple haze, came a whack upside the head. Some cranky ancient alum, hiding behind the signature “Anonymous,” sent this nasty dispatch:
“It’s HOIAH, stupid, not hoya. What do you think we are, those rich kids from Georgetown? Oy!”
Mr. Anonymous included a photocopy of an arcane music program that included his alleged preferred spelling.
This bold challenge, of course, required refutation through vigorous research in the College archives and elsewhere. That’s how we Crusaders are trained to handle such situations. In Rhetoric, this is how professor William “Scratch” McCann and others taught us to fight back—with well-reasoned arguments, with irrefutable logic, with a withering assault of historic fact.
So I hit the mattresses, dove into a pile of musty books, called Jo-Anne Carr in Archives for her learned guidance and, er, Googled the hell out of hoya and hoiah. Scholarship is never easy.
We discovered the obvious. That the word “Hoya” is most famously associated with Georgetown University. Indeed the school newspaper has been called The Hoya since 1920 when it abandoned The Hilltopper.
Since the late 1920s, sportswriters have used The Hoyas as a nickname for Georgetown. Patrick Ewing was a Hoya. As an undergradate, Bill Clinton enjoyed that moniker. Ya-da, ya-da, ya-da.
It is said that once the Georgetown baseball team was called the Stonewalls (1866-1873), as its field was surrounded by college walls.
Speculation has it that some classics major, combining the Greek word hoia (what) and the Latin word saxa (rocks), suggested cheering the Stonewalls on with yells of Hoia Saxa or “What Rocks!” Hoia apparently got Anglicized, with the small “i” transmuting to a small “y” and Hoya was on its way.
Father Anthony J. Kuzniewski—Jesuit, professor of history and author of the College’s history, Thy Honored Name—makes several observations while confessing that the Hoya versus Hoiah debate continues to baffle archeologists, geologists and psychiatrists.
“Georgetown has a Congressional charter and actually conferred degrees at Holy Cross until Holy Cross was granted its Massachusetts charter (March 12, 1865),” notes Fr. Kuzniewski.
As an offshoot of Georgetown, founded in 1789, it seems likely that Holy Cross may have adopted a Hoya cheer or two.
In the 1890s, when baseball blossomed at The Cross, whacky cheers were profligate. In his history of Holy Cross, Father Kuzniewski footnotes several typical cheers, including “Hooki, eyki, Kai-ai-ai; Hooki, eyki, Kai-ai-ai; Ho-o, ho-o-o, Hollobaloo, Holy Cross!”
I suppose throwing a hoya or even a hoi-ah into College cheers would not have seemed all that irrational.
In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt arrived to speak at Holy Cross’ first commencement held at Fitton Field. Father Kuzniewski describes the scene in his book: “As he came into sight students gave him a college cheer: Hoiah, hoiah, Choo Choo, Rah-Rah, Choo-Choo Rah-Rah, Hoiah Roosevelt Rah.’’
In time, such cheers were turned into lyrics and music.
J. Leo Gorman, a teacher and 1904 Holy Cross graduate, penned “Chu! Chu!” with B.J. Shandley composing the music. “Ring out with your Hoiah and a Chu! Chu! Rah! Rah!’’ is how the song begins, according to the lyrics appearing on the back of a 1979 album, Songs of Holy Cross. It also makes plain that Chu!Chu! is not spelled Choo-Choo.
There are other lyrics that confirm Hoiah, such as “Hoiah, Holy Cross’’ (words by Gus Conniff of the Class of 1902; music by J. Edward Bouvier). Also “Linden Lane” starts out “Then we’ll give another Hoiah, As we go down Linden Lane …’’ and those words were penned by Rev. Michael Earls, S.J., a poet and graduate from the Class of 1896.
In my father’s 1927 yearbook, The Purple Patcher, lyrics of all the popular College songs appear on Page 322. Somehow a song called “The Slogan’’ (words by Francis E. Foley of the Class of 1908 and music by Francis P. McGovern, Class of 1903) and the aforementioned “Chu! Chu!” are melded into one song called “Holy Cross Slogan.” So, after you sing the “Ring out then your Hoi-ah with a Chu-Chu, Rah-Rah,” then comes “March on as knights of old, With hearts as loyal and true and bold …”
Historians seem flummoxed about exactly how Hoia Saxa became Hoya became Hoi-ah and now Hoiah at Holy Cross. They observe that another Jesuit school, Marquette, has a fight song, titled “Ring Out Ahoya.”
Ergo, “Anonymous” seemingly has a valid point. Not that we’re stupid, necessarily, but I will concede that this column, for the purposes of historic accuracy, should be called “Give Another Hoiah!”
Not that I really give a hoiah what the column is called as long as our favorite fight song sounds the same while we’re cheering our Crusaders on to victory, as we did during the season’s opener, a 26-13 humbling of The Hoyas of Georgetown.
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