The first star of Georgetown's early era, Fred Rice arrived on its downtown campus a bonafide name in Washington basketball circles. Rice had excelled with George Washington's inaugural team in 1906-07, leading GW to a 6-2 record with wins over Georgetown and Maryland. When GW failed to form a team the following season, Rice transferred to Georgetown's law school.

Rice led Georgetown to the mythical "Champions of the South" title in 1908, with losses only to Fordham and a Penn team which won 23 of 27 games, most among the major colleges. Georgetown finished #16 in the nation that season in a retroactive poll created for the early days of college basketball.

In an era of low scoring for college basketball, Rice's numbers were remarkable. He scored 20 or more points in four of his first seven games, and his 14.9 game average was matched by one other player in the first 35 years of the sport at Georgetown. Rice finished as runner up in scoring in 1908-09, with a well respected 7.9 points per game average. Injuries limited his his final season to just seven games and a 8.8 career average, which ranks fifth all time among Georgetown lettermen prior to World War II. Extrapolated to historical scoring trends, Rice averaged the equivalent of a 18 point per game career.

Following his law degree at Georgetown, Rice enrolled in graduate studies at Catholic University, where he was named player-coach in December 1911. A year later, having relinquished his playing role, Rice led Catholic to a 28-7 record from 1912 through 1914 en route to a 177-136 record in 19 seasons, the second most wins by a coach in school's history. He was posthumously inducted into the Catholic University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1982.