Bob Benson liked to say he was a history buff. Any student knows that while it's important to understand history, it's even better to make history.

The son of Ivy League-educated parents, Benson's father was a two sport letterman at Cornell and his mother an All-American at Brown. After an injury ended his football career at a Division III school, he returned home and graduated from the University of Vermont in 1986 and secured a graduate assistant job at Albany, a school where many top coaches had interned. Following a year under coach Bob Ford, Benson was hired as an assistant at Worcester Polytechnic (WPI) in 1987. By 25, Benson was the defensive coordinator at Johns Hopkins. Three years later at 28, despite no head coaching experience, he applied for the post at Georgetown following Scott Glacken's dismissal.

"A lot of people at first were kind of put off because he looks so young," said associate athletic director Denis Kanach, a member of the search committee. "But his interpersonal skills were tremendous. He was a big hit with the committee. The age thing never came up."

"I think it's a major bonus being young," Benson told the Washington Post. "It's one of the best characteristics I have right now."

Amidst a number of former players and local high school coaches showing interest in the job, Benson stood out. He presented not only his coaching record but a strategic plan to Georgetown, once which included accountability and discipline, the emphasis of the term student-athlete, reconnecting with alumni and, of course, to win. At 28, Bob Benson was the youngest full time football coach hired by GU since Bob Margarita in 1949, whose tenure was frought with uncertainty and ended with the dropping of the sport in 1951. Benson was determined not to let that happen again.

"Our football staff inherited a program that was probably one meeting away from being discontinued and very few people who actually cared about the direction the program would take, which was probably why I was offered the job in the first place," he wrote in 2000. "We needed to get people to believe in Georgetown football and trust it would make positive contributions to Georgetown University and the Georgetown community."

Benson's arrival coincided with Georgetown's move to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference with seven other Division III expats, providing GU a steady schedule from which to build upon in lieu of getting pounded by more experienced Division I-AA teams. Focusing on steady progress, the Hoyas began to grow. Four wins in 1993, a 5-4 record in 1994, 6-3 by 1995. In 1996, the Hoyas tied a modern school record with seven wins and led all of Division I-AA in total defense. The 1997 team upped the record to 8-3, ranked in the top 10 in three I-AA defensive categories, and earned Georgetown its first MAAC championship with a stirring 24-0 win over Duquesne at Kehoe Field.

The Hoyas were a combined 14-4 over the next two seasons, with identical 9-2 records. Benson was thinking beyond the MAAC, and began to lobby the University leadership for an upgrade in the program.

"While the winning was happening on the field, in the classroom, and on campus, our players were doing a tremendous job creating a positive image as serious student athletes and quality citizens. In addition, alumni were coming back, giving money, and the Georgetown football program was beginning to get more and more people believing in the cause," he wrote in a 2000 review of the program. "Momentum was growing and we began to explore the landscape and see if our football program could make a move."

"Timing is everything. In the fall of 1999, the Patriot League approached our athletic director with an invitation to join the Patriot League in the fall of 2001", with the pending departure of Towson for the Atlantic 10 to follow after the 2002 season. "The association with peer institutions, as well as the opportunity to play for an automatic bid to the I-AA playoffs, made the Patriot League a perfect fit for Georgetown."

Of the ten schools which played MAAC football in the 1990's, seven eventually dropped the sport. Georgetown, with its move to the Patriot League, became the most prominent survivor.

Benson began to plan ahead, including long-term scheduling to bring as many as six different Ivy League opponents to future Georgetown schedules by 2011, or as he liked to say, to play the schools in the Georgetown fight song. The move was both competitive and cultural, according to Benson. "As one of the top academic institutions in the nation, Georgetown wanted to be associated with schools in the Ivy League and the Patriot League," he said.

"By the time they play us, they should be a comparable opponent," said Yale head coach Jack Siedlecki, who hired Benson at WPI in 1987. "Going from Division III to Division I-AA to the Patriot League, you're bound to experience growing pains. But they're headed in the right direction."

Georgetown competed as an independent in 2000, with a mix of MAAC and Patriot opponents en route to a 5-6 record. The 2001 season showed how much work lay ahead for the Hoyas in the Patriot League. Georgetown finished just 3-7, winless in full conference play, and GU wasn't within 18 points of any PL team all season.

After a crushing 69-0 loss to Lehigh to open the 2002 season, Georgetown rebounded by capturing its first two wins in the Patriot League and earning a 5-6 record overall. No less visible was the decision to move off an increasingly unsafe Kehoe Field for Harbin Field, designated as the site for Georgetown's Multi-Sport Facility by 2005. "The move to Harbin Field goes along with the move to the Patriot League as two of the most important decisions we have made to make us more visible to the student body," Benson said. "Being in the center of campus gives us a better atmosphere for student involvement."

"We can compete in this league, and we will continue to compete. But we cannot function if we do not have the facilities we need," he warned. "The bottom line is we have to have the new facility to have success in this league."

It would be a while before Georgetown got that facility, of course, and Benson's teams struggled going forward. The 2003 season provided some more momentum, including wins over Lafayette, Stony Brook and Georgetown's first win over an Ivy League team since 1916, but it was a difficult year personally for the coach. His first daughter, Hope, was born with a chromosomal abnormality. The players and school rallied to support the Bensons, even as the long term outlook proved difficult. Hope Benson died after just six months.

After a lackluster 3-8 season in 2004, Benson brought in a pair of experienced assistants in former Navy head coach Elliot Uzelac and former Dartmouth offensive coordinator John Perry, but the two proved ineffective together. From a 4-4 record in the 2005 season, GU lost its final three games for a sixth consecutive losing season. There was no public pressure on Benson at this point but new athletic director Bernard Muir may have had other ideas. On the last day of the 2005 fall term, Georgetown posted a press release that Benson, with four years remaining on his contract, had resigned, "effective immediately". Muir, said the Washington Post, declined to comment further.

Returning to the role of an assistant coach, Benson spent two years at Towson. Since remarried, he relocated to Division II Colorado Mines while his wife was a track coach at Air Force. The family moved back east and for the last six years, he has served as the defensive coordinator at Penn.

Bob Benson's 13 years on the Hilltop provided stability, structure, and the confidence that Georgetown could compete in college football. The Patriot League era at Georgetown owes much to his vision.

Year	Record	Pct.	Home	Away
1993	4-5	0.444	2-2	2-3
1994	5-4	0.556	4-1	1-3
1995	6-3	0.667	3-1	3-2
1996	7-3	0.700	4-1	3-2
1997	8-3	0.727	4-2	4-1
1998	9-2	0.818	6-0	3-2
1999	9-2	0.818	4-2	5-0
2000	5-6	0.455	3-3	2-3
2001	3-7	0.300	2-3	1-4
2002	5-6	0.454	3-2	2-4
2003	4-8	0.333	2-4	1-4
2004	3-8	0.272	2-4	1-4
2005	4-7	0.363	2-4	2-3
Totals	72-64	0.529	41-29	31-35