We owe our origins to Joseph Shields Jr. (C’61), a Long Island native who assembled the first team of polo-playing Hoyas in the 1950’s. The club was an immediate hit, attracting over a thousand spectators from the likes of Georgetown, George Washington, Trinity, and Mt. Vernon, to weekend games hosted out of nearby fields in Virginia.  Between 1962 and 1964, we went undefeated across the East Coast in matches against Yale, Harvard, Cornell, and the University of Virginia.

By 1965, the inherent charisma and intuitiveness of our members adorned the club in many of the traditions it is remembered for today. During match halftimes, for example, the Board of Directors, led by Francis Bodkin Jr. (BA’66), organized for a greased pig to be released onto the field. On one particular occasion it was over-doused in motor oil and was not caught until it reached the end of a nearby indoor arena. Perhaps the story that deserves to be tied most infamously to this group of GPAA alums, is that of Juan Pablo Garced. Garced was never a Georgeotwn student nor a real person. As Bodkin has recalled, he was an alias invented with a South American-sounding origin to validate the abilities of the three to four players who were presented at matches under the name. The team orchestrated the deception so well that a number of years later, the Alumni Association inquired about Garced’s contact information as they feared they had lost contact with a recent graduate.

It is believed that the club went dormant for some time beginning in the early 1970’s. Perhaps this was a result of the debt that had been  incurred with the Athletic Board, or one too many cases of “ungentlemanly conduct at polo games,” a quote from a letter written by the Director of Student Personnel addressed to the Georgetown Student Body on October 28, 1965. At the end of it he threatens to shut down matches if “excessive drinking and other offensive behaviors continued.”

Not until the 1990’s under the leadership of Maj. Mark Gillespie did the club evolve to a comparable level of prominence. During its second “rebirth” the team called the Potomac Polo Club home and faced off against many of the same counterparts —  Yale, Cornell, and the University of Virginia. In 1991 a reunion match was organized on D.C.’s National Mall, with the current team facing off against representatives from the 1960’s team. The likes of Robert Reilly (BA ’68) returned to participate. Over the next fifteen or so years, those involved with carrying on the teams legacy included Thomas Pryma (MSB ’95), Philip Hahn (BA ’02), Andrew Gundlach (MSFS ’04), and Sean Davis (MSB ’07).

The team’s most recent resurrection began in 2015 under the guidance of John Holowesko (’17) and was continued by Armando Soto  (SFS ’18) and Orlando Hutchings (SFS ’19). In 2023, Alfonso Pla Zobel de Ayala (MSB ’24) and Ashley Parekh (MSB ’24) registered the team with the United States Polo Association, and with assistance from Coach Gustavo Fraga-Errecart, so began its formal entrance into the world of Intercollegiate Polo. In April 2024, our men’s team, represented by Pla Zobel de Ayala, Hamilton “Max” Gundlach (SFS ’25), Benedikt Jaenecke, and Ford Middendorf (C’24), were Reserve National Champions at the DII Intercollegiate National Championships in Los Osos, California.

An active effort to record and archive the team’s history is being undergone by the current Board of Directors, Lucienne Bacon (SFS ’26), Lilly Izmirlian (MSB ’26), Max Gundlach (MSB ‘25), and Arhan Soni (C '25), with assistance from Bennie Smith (BA ‘86). Alumni who are interested in connecting with or supporting this process in any way are encouraged to reach out.