This helmet and another 100 or so should be empty – as Maryland has forfeited the right to employ the sons of parents who should demand better.
My son played college basketball, and there wasn’t a day while he was at Loyola of Chicago that I didn’t hope coaches and trainers were intently looking after his well being.
Health is everything, and I know coaches can be blinded by the need to win. I didn’t care much about winning – I just wanted Ryan to be safe – challenged but safe.
When I read and listened to the reports of malfeasance within the leadership of the Maryland football program – how those who ran it used bullying and belittling to coerce additional reps, and shame players toward a dangerous physical edge – I thought of my son.
What would my reaction be if my son witnessed a teammate suffer from heat stroke as a result of sprint work, be hospitalized, and wither and die two weeks later? How would I respond to the stories being told by teammates who were relentlessly bullied by a rogue strength and conditioning coach dangerous enthusiasm encouraged by the head coach?
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It’s inconceivable that I wouldn’t immediately drive to the University of Maryland to retrieve him. There is no chance I would allow him to continue to serve at the pleasure of a coach whose putrid culture of physical and emotional torment produced misery and a death.
And yet, football players at Maryland continue to practice as they prepare for the upcoming season.
I abhor quitting. Abandoning those left behind would be so difficult for me as a student-athlete, but as a parent, swooping in to protect my son would be an instinct I would be powerless to deny.
The scholarship might be another issue – leave and all of a sudden the tuition, room and board, and monthly stipend vanish. What would mom and/or dad think of that?
That the parents of the players at Maryland haven’t made the drive, helped sons pack, and file papers to withdraw as a student as they prepare to transfer is incredible. Finding a way through adverse situations is part of what’s great about being a student-athlete, but death and torment are good enough reasons to seek shelter from the storm elsewhere.
Parents need to be able to trust not only coaches of their sons and daughters, but those who oversee the coaches, and at Maryland that’s not wise – or even possible. That would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for me.
A corrupt individual can be conquered, but not a corrupt culture – and it’s clear the culture at Maryland is corrupt.
We say it all the time – there must be a consequence for bad acts, and I can’t think of a better consequence for the University of Maryland than to have a football program without players.
If I’m the parent of a Terrapin, he would be a former Terrapin at the moment my hurried drive to the College Park campus ended.
Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.
I would think that because parents aren’t pulling their kids out and because their hasn’t been a rash of transfers, it suggests that the culture is NOT an issue at Maryland – despite the inflammatory claims of disgruntled (anonymous) former players. Like you, I would be outraged if my son were subject to abuse at the hands of coaches with whom I entrusted his safety – but dig deeper. Parents and players are rallying to the defense of coach Durkin and other coaches – and the strength coach who is alleged to have perpetrated the abuse has resigned. The death of Jordan McNair was horrible and should never have happened, but based on yesterday’s press conference and the microscope the program is now under, I would think there will be no safer place for any player to be moving forward.