PHILADELPHIA—The University of Maryland’s crossed into the dark side this week.
It was bad enough that Terps’ football player Jordan McNair died of heat stroke after he did not receive proper medical care last June after collapsing in a work out May 29. Now, five months later, the university system’s Board of Regents has decided that third-year head football coach DJ Durkin, who had been suspended since August, and AD Damon Evans can both keep their jobs.
Durkin will coach Maryland in Saturday’s game against Michigan State.
At the same time, University president Wallace Loh, who raised Maryland’s academic profile and was the only person in the administration to take full legal and moral responsibility for this tragedy, is out. He wanted to fire Durkin, but did not have the political clout to do it. We now know who is in control at this school and it isn’t the president. Loh announced he will retire in June after the Board of Regents threatened to fire him if he did not re-instate Durkin.
The world is upside down in College Park.
The buck obviously doesn’t stop with the head coach at this university and the decision to retain Durkin raises serious questions about whether the university placed the pursuit of success in Big Ten football above the health and welfare of its student athletes.
At a press conference in Baltimore, Chairman of the Board of Regents, James Brady, said the board had accepted all the findings and recommendations from a handpicked independent commission’s study on the culture of the school’s football program, admitting that while the university bears responsibility for McNair’s death; that the athletic department was ‘dysfunctional” and that strength coach Rick Court berated, demeaned and humiliated players, it decided to retain Durkin, claiming the program did not have a “toxic’ culture, but was an environment where problems festered because many players “feared speaking out.”
Brady went on to say the commission interviewed many people about Durkin and admitted many were critical of the coach and his leadership style. But others, he claimed, spoke with affection for him. After speaking with the coach, the regents decided that he should be allowed a second chance to keep his job.
“We believe that coach Durkin has been unfairly blamed for the dysfunction in the athletic department. And while he shares some responsibility, it is not fair to place all of it at his feet,’’ Brady said. “We believe that he is a good man, and a good coach who is devoted to the well-being of student athletes under his charge. He is also at the beginning of his coaching career, with a great deal of promise, and much still to learn. We believe he deserves that opportunity.’’
This entire press conference was a debacle.
The Board made a litany of irrational excuses for for Durkin, claiming he was not given the proper training to do his job as a first-time head coach, even though he trained as an assistant and coordinator under two of the most high-profile coaches in the country, Urban Meyer and Jim Harbaugh.
No one, who has any understanding of the power the head coach of big time football program wields on campus believes any of this.
“I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach and somebody spit in my face,’’ McNair’s father, Marty, said. “I don’t think he (Durkin) should be allowed to coach anyone else’s child, in an environment like that. We lost a won there. That’s a wound that will never heal.”
McNair’s death should have never happened, but it may have been inevitable because of the macho, bullying culture that existed under Durkin’s regime. As McNair struggled for breath, trainers either ignored him or berated him, showing a total disregard for the fatal consequences until it was too late.
“The only person who has paid for those failures is Jordan McNair,’’ Hassan Murphy, the McNair family attorney, said.
Court has been dismissed. And Durkin will feel the backlash. Three players walked out of a team meeting after Durkin was re-instated and there was both shock and outrage among some players.
“Every Saturday my teammates and I have to kneel before the memorial of our fallen teammate. Yet a group of people do not have the courage to hold anyone responsible for his death,” offensive lineman Ellis McKennie, a high school teammate of McNair at the McDonough School outside Baltimore, write on his Twitter account. “If only they could have the courage Jordan had. It’s never the wrong time to do what’s right.”
The Maryland student government association has organized a protest rally, demanding the firing of Durkin. Moving forward, Maryland deserves to be a hard sell in recruiting to any parent who cares about his or her son’s welfare as long as the current staff is in place.
