Each of the men profiled in this series were successful in their own ways, to which Georgetown University was only a brief intersection in their lives. Some can be dismissed more easily than others. And the loss of some of these names, 30 years later, can still sting...none more so than Georgetown's missed opportunity to sign Grant Hill.

Grant Hill grew up in Reston, VA, just 20 miles from the Georgetown campus. His father was a former halfback at Yale, a two time All-Pro with the Dallas Cowboys, and in retirement a front office executive for the Baltimore Orioles. His mother was an investment advisor who was a roommate of Hillary Rodham Clinton when they both studied at Wellesley College. At an early age, Grant found a passion in his favorite team: the Georgetown Hoyas.

By the age of 11, Grant was at every Georgetown home game. At 13, he talked his father into driving to Lexington, Kentucky for the 1985 Final Four, and admitted to crying when Georgetown fell short in the final. By 16, he was one of the top high school recruits in the nation. His #32 jersey at South Lakes HS was a tribute not to Magic Johnson, but to Georgetown's Michael Jackson, who wore the number when he played guard at South Lakes from 1979 to 1982.

Hill could have attended any program he wanted to, but his parents had some ideas where he should pursue a scholarship offer. His mother thought Georgetown was an excellent choice. His father offered the University of North Carolina as an opportunity to explore as well, but knew his son was a Hoya fan through and through. In 1989, Grant took a visit to Georgetown, and thus began one of the more bizarre recruiting stories in the school's history.

This was a period when Georgetown was thought to have missed on a number of area stars, through indifference or a lack of effort. The Washington press corps criticized Thompson for not recruiting DeMatha center Danny Ferry, though Ferry later revealed he specifically told Thompson he did not want to play at a local school. Sherman Douglas was a Georgetown fan at Spingarn, and went unrecruited, starring instead at Syracuse. Dennis Scott, a three time All-Met at Flint Hill, was not offered a scholarship and went to Georgia Tech. Other names went elsewhere to sustained success: Walt Williams, Jerrod Mustaf, Randolph Childress, Dickie Simpkins, Lawrence Moten. But the story of Hill's recruitment was stunning in its myopia.

Hill relayed the story in an interview at Esquire Magazine, and the account was neither confirmed nor denied by the only other people in the room that day at McDonough Gymnasium, namely, head coach John Thompson and academic coordinator Mary Fenlon.

"Coach Thompson was there, and Miss Mary Fenlon, Georgetown's academic adviser," Hill was quoted as having said. "We're sitting in a room and Miss Fenlon hands me a book and says, 'Read this.' I was a little startled, but I took the book and started reading to myself. Then she says, 'I meant, read out loud.' So I started reading out loud. After a page, she stops me and says, 'Now, tell me what you've read.'"

Fenlon's reading test was common to recruits who had come from low income or poor academic environments, a brief examination if they were capable of the level of comprehension Thompson would expect of them. But Grant Hill hadn't grown up in a low income community. Fenlon knew this, of course, but would make no accommodation.

"What does this show? This doesn't show my intelligence,", Hill recalled in a 1994 interview with USA Today. "I was a little offended. So I erased Georgetown from the picture." According to multiple accounts, Hill left the interview vowing never to attend Georgetown University.

North Carolina became the presumptive favorite, but Duke was not far behind. Coach Mike Krzyzewski had built a steady pipeline of DC-area players from whom Georgetown missed: Johnny Dawkins, Tommy Amaker, Kenny Blakeney, Crawford Palmer, Joey Beard. The aforementioned Danny Ferry was graduating Duke that spring and while the Blue Devils had gone to four Final Fours in five years from 1986 to 1990, he needed a versatile power forward to reach the championship plateau. Hill committed to Duke over North Carolina, and while his #32 jersey was already taken by sophomore Christian Laettner, Hill selected a number familiar from his days as a Georgetown fan: #33.

At first, Hill told the Washington Post he wasn't sure if he could compete at Duke, once calling Amaker and asking if he should have gone to George Mason instead. Four years later, there was no doubt he could compete: Hill became one of the greatest players in Duke athletics history. As a freshman, he led the Blue Devils to its first NCAA title, and repeated it as a sophomore. (For those who remember Laettner's epic jumper in the 1992 regional final versus Kentucky, they may forget that it was Hill who launched the 60 foot pinpoint pass to set up the shot.) A two time consensus All-America selection, Hill was a combined 118-23 over his college career, set a record for most career points ever scored in the NCAA Tournament, and was a combined 18-2 in the post-season, including a third trip to the Final Four as a senior. Over those same four seasons, teams from Georgetown never proceeded past the second round.

The third selection in the 1994 NBA Draft and its Rookie of the Year in 1995, Hill was a seven time NBA All-Star in an 18 year career. A member of the National Basketball Hall of Fame, he is now a private equity investor, a television analyst, the managing director of USA Basketball, a member of the NCAA Board of Governors, and part of the ownership group that bought the NBA's Atlanta Hawks for $850 million in 2015. Five years later, the franchise was valued by Forbes magazine at $1.52 billion.

Grant Hill has enjoyed a long history of philanthropy to his alma mater. Joining with his wife Tamia, the Hill family were the first Duke alumni to endow a $1 million scholarship for the men's basketball program, and subsequently took the lead on an initiative called the Duke Basketball Legacy Fund, which has since raised over $130 million for that program, fully endowing all 13 men's basketball scholarships and building endowments covering all or part of the salaries for its head coach, assistant coaches, academic advisors, and even covering the tuition of Duke's student managers.

When Calvin Hill received an honorary degree from Yale University in 2016, the citation read: "You are a Yale legend." At Duke, the same will one day be said for his son.

As for Georgetown, all one can say is what might have been.