Also, if true, they're just opening themselves up to further lawsuits. And I don't see how anyone would let their son play for him after everything that has happened, so I hope they don't have any illusions of ever advancing out of the B1G cellar.
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well we should recruit heavily in the DC area. because I don't see how Durkin can walk in a parents house and tell them "let your kid stay with me for the next 4 years..... or however many years he has left to live.... here with me at Maryland.". The school it self will take a LONG time to recover from allowing him to come back IMO because they just basically sanctioned Durkins actions,.
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Yea, not sorry, but the MD situation and the ND situation are apples to oranges. Both fruit, but inherently different.
Similar in the fact that the young men's deaths could have easily been avoided, but the more we learn about Durkin and his staff is that this was a cultural casualty long practiced by that coaching staff.
I agree that BK shouldn't have sent the kid up in those conditions, but I do not think that situation was the result of a chronic cultural practice woven by multiple coaches to push a player's physical capacity to the brink of, and leading to, death.
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This will hurt them for years to come - it's one thing to sell a kid on a school. It's another animal to sell a kid that he will not have to worry about his own health and well-being being a player on your team.
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I have to wonder if this comes down to a money thing. Maryland was already broke when they decided to jump ship to the BIG10, looking at having to shut down as many as 13 varsity sports. Then take into account the $31.4 million buyout that they settled with the ACC on, the money that they are going to have to shell out to the kids family in this case and then looking at having to pay two coaching staffs, especially if they couldn't find that they did something they could fire them for cause over.
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Maryland also receives a reduced version of the $51 million Big10 payout that is likely higher than any ACC school. They may be broke right now, but they are smart playing the long term game. They stand to make stupid amounts of money that will lift their program ceiling way above where it was in the ACC, possibly above ours.
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I'm not sure why they sold their soul. Seems like a long line of decisions trying to leverage the athletics for academic gains. And none of the presidents of the University have been able to manage it properly. All the way back to Bias. The current President, Loh, is a complete moron. Unlike by all the alumni I talk to. The previous one was just as bad. And all of the AD's have put them further behind the 8-ball; See the $200million overage on the Cole Field House renovation.
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"We believe Coach Durkin has been unfairly blamed for the dysfunction in the athletic department," Brady said.
Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic reported three Maryland players walked out of a team meeting with Durkin about the situation.
An Aug. 10 report from ESPN.com's Heather Dinich, Adam Rittenberg and Tom VanHaaren, based on interviews with multiple sources close to the program, alleged Durkin, 40, created a "coaching environment based on fear and intimidation" that featured "extreme verbal abuse of players."
"I would never, ever, ever allow my child to be coached there," a former Maryland staff member told ESPN.com.
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It gets better. The Maryland Board told President Loh that if he even thought about firing Durkin, they would immediately move to terminate his employment with the University.
In his meeting with the regents last Friday, Loh explained to the board why he felt the school needed to move on from Durkin.
"It was made clear that if he wanted to remain in his position, he had no option," said one person close to the situation said. "He ultimately felt it would've been tremendously disruptive to the entire campus if he was to be terminated simple because he wouldn't put the coach back on the field. . . .
"The board has no authority to hire and fire a football coach, but they made clear that returning DJ to the field was their highest priority."
In the end, President Loh is going to resign anyway, and the Board gets to keep their coach.
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Agreed. But if you're going to basically be responsible for killing a player, then you're not going to be aware enough to resign. I think the civil court will take care of him.
What's more, any parent that would allow their kid to play for him after this...no words.
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Evans should not keep his job. He was Assistant AD, promoted to head AD after the death, and did NOTHING until August. Even then, I'm not sure he did a lot except sit in Loh's office and listen to Loh talk on the phone. He's worthless and should not, in any way, be allowed to keep his position.
The Durkin decision bothers me. But keeping Evans and Loh disgust me to no end.
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EDIT: While Loh was delivering the news, he was still representing Maryland and did it faithfully. He's seeing out the academic year and will get a job elsewhere.
Durkin and Co.? Probably not. They're on borrowed time and I can't imagine someone else hiring them in the near term.
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Loh was increasing the academic respectability of Maryland. Durkin showed the football team videos of animals devouring each other, and one of his coaches yelled "drag his ass off the field" to McNair as he suffered from heatstroke, which were some of the last words he ever heard.
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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 accountable for his death. If only they could have the courage that Jordan had. It's never the wrong time to do what's right. pic.twitter.com/AaZVmLGTtS— Ellis McKennie (@emck_cubed97) October 30, 2018
This is fine.
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I've read that a handful of players left the initial meeting where the team learned that he would be reinstated. Otherwise all I've seen are a couple of sportswriter columns encouraging the players to boycott.
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Or, more likely, the majority of players are afraid to make a stand and lose their scholarships since the school has basically shown with their actions that they stand behind Durkin. I have a hard time blaming the players in this situation.
What you said is probably only true for a very small handful of the current players. It's not like Maryland is stocked with pro prospects.
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It won't happen, but wouldn't it be great if the NCAA came out said any Maryland player could transfer without penalty to any school? Essentially cut the legs out from under Maryland.
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Yeah but they way shit is these days in this country and around the world, i'm sufficiently numb to it. People don't even care to hide it anymore. That's the worst part.
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And the fans will point to the statement and say it was proven the coach did nothing wrong and will circle the wagons against common sense and decency a la Paterno.
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Not to open a can of worms on a tangent, but we all stood up and praised Steger after the 07 shootings. In retrospect (at least IMO) the University could've done more / better.
My point: I think we're not immune to rationalization either.
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I understand that you are saying that our fan base can rationalize bad decisions but that goes on the assumption that Steger played some major role in the shooting happening. I, and a lot of other people, completely disagree with that. It's a terrible comparison at rationalizing two things that aren't anywhere near apples to oranges.
If you wanted to attempt to make that comparison, you could say that the VT fan base rationalizes Michael Vick's trangsressions as not as bad because we love what he did for VT football. Still, that's apples to oranges, but bringing 4/16 into this is not ok in my opinion.
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...The whole point is showing how fan bases will rationalize bad decisions made by our administrators. Quite frankly I don't care if ppl think it's "not ok in their opinion"; no one's doing a direct comparison of child molestation to neglect during a school shooting, but how we tell ourselves that we're still good and love our school most certainly is the same mentality.
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Your point is valid, but your example is based on what a lot of folks would consider a flawed premise. I can't expand beyond that because it would take us down a very bad rabbit hole that would go against community guidelines.
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I visited a few Maryland blogs to see what the overall fan reaction on this was. It turned my stomach. They are all ecstatic he's coming back and completely absolving him, saying he's not a medical professional so he should not be held responsible. I am just in disbelief, but I guess I shouldn't be
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I agree, but even after he's gone it will still leave a sour taste in my mouth. Time and again universities, fans of implicated universities, and the NCAA have proven that they really don't give a damn about doing the right thing. Its all about wins and the almighty dollar
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They didn't want to pay his $2.5 million a year in addition to another coach. Plus some influential boosters (looking at you, Kevin Plank, still like him).
A penny wise and a dollar stupid, but that's how Maryland has been for a while.
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Similar to when the old AD wanted to fire Fridge. The Governor refused to sign off on the buy-out...and told her if she wanted him gone to raise money from the Terrapin Club donors to do so. He coached another season, the final in his contract.
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I could be wrong, but wouldn't they owe him 0 dollars if they fire him "for cause". Seems like a player dying from abuse would qualify as "for cause" unless you were twisting yourself into any and every knot possible to claim otherwise.
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I agree, but it doesn't sound like they're firing him for cause, which would mean an additional lawsuit and even more bad PR.
I've got to believe they're smart enough to have thoroughly reviewed the situation and his contract from a legal perspective, but I also thought firing Durkin would have been an easy decision.
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They would honestly begin to salvage whatever good reputation they have left if they tried to fire him for cause, and stood firm on not paying him a dime going forward. It would show they care, it would show they cared about MacNair and would show they're at least attempting to do the right thing. And any additional lawsuit that was filed by Durkin against them to recoup the money would only further help UMd out, as they would just have to keep reiterating "you killed a fucking kid, and all you care about is money, go fuck yourself you disgusting prick".
And if they lost the lawsuit and still had to pay, people would actually feel sorry for them, which is a complete 180 from where they are now.
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If they've got no case, it's a waste of time, and they should know if they have a case by now. They should be pragmatic.
But firing Durkin was a no-brainer three months ago, so having the Board of Regents pressuring Loh to retain him is a real head-scratcher, and shows that they are completely out of touch with reality.
It looks like some football boosters who like Durkin swayed the board to keep him. The students will be in full revolt over that.
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if "you killed a player" isn't grounds for a "for cause" firing, I don't know what is. You'd think that 'ensure your players don't die as a direct result of your coaching' should be a clause in there somewhere.
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Negligence can be very difficult to assign to an individual, and those contracts are written by lawyers who know how to weasel out of liability. The university is probably where the blame is going to lie.
It may well be a "Don't go away mad, just go away" situation for Durkin.
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I can't imagine that Durkin can hire a better legal team than the University of Maryland.
If it really does end up happening that Maryland allowed themselves to get into a contract where their coaching staffs are so well protected that they can literally be so negligent in their training that it directly leads to the death of players, and you still can't fire them without buyout payments, they deserve all the bad publicity and PR they have gotten and will continue to get. Seriously, how is the bare minimum requirement not "don't directly cause a player to die" on these contracts?
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You keep saying "don't directly cause a player to die", but he didn't directly cause it. It was during summer workouts when the coaches are on limited contact with players and the workouts are being run by the S&C staff. That, I imagine, is the sticking point in the "for cause" argument.
And before I get jumped on for "defending" him. I'm not in the least. Just pointing out a potential sticking point. It also can't help UMDs case that the investigation found him to be not at fault.
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They wanted to fire him.
They were hoping the report and investigation would find a way to point at least 1 finger at DJ to fire him for cause.
The report showed he had limited contact during that time, and wasn't "for cause".
They "made" the S&C coach "retire," which let their main scapegoat free. Major point here...and the reason why many higher-ups (see L'ville) are put on administrative leave. So they can drop the real hammer instead of letting them slink away scot free.
They have a MAJOR (read +/-$40million) change order for the completion of Cole Field house which wasn't originally budgeted. Opps. (Coulda used a VT Construction Manager, amiright.)
The buy-out on Durkin is/was $5.5million.
The Governor will not authorize that payment willy-nilly because the University mishandled the situation from the jump. And they already are way over on Cole.
Wallace Loh speaks from the hip, thinks outside even the outside of the box, and has repeated made terrible decisions. He was on extremely thin ice before May 2018. He said things and made decisions in the past few months that have not sat well with anyone at UMD; especially the board of regents.
All of that leads to money making decisions, decisions being made by people that shouldn't be making them, and a complete dufus-like situation.
There were a lot of players that wanted to play for Durkin. Others did not. At the end of the day, Durkin was found to not be "at-cause" for the incident. He may have a strange, non-traditional football atmosphere; which kids may not want to be a part of. And I get that. I do. Like Fly, not defending him, just saying...
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The problem is, based on my understanding, is that two separate investigations basically cleared him of any criminal or negligent wrongdoing. You can't fire for cause without that. Was he a piece of @$*&, yes. Did he screw up uncategorically, yes. Did he mean for anybody to die, no.
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I don't believe "for cause" is limited to criminal or negligent wrong-doing. "For cause" can be violation of policy to such an extreme to warrant immediate termination. These are typically spelled out in the policy.
The question of whether something he did was criminal is beside the fact of whether he did something that breached "for cause termination" policies.
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Listening to the Governor's sound clip..."It's about time" when asked about firing Durkin...it seems that there was a push to fire him for cause to avoid buying him out. Bringing him back, then firing him the next day most likely opened the pay-day vault for DJ. And if they bulk, he'll sue them and cost them way more than what they owe him.
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Maryland does have some big donors, though, and I'm guessing they had some influence in this fiasco. Certainly wasn't anyone who reads the papers and cares about the court of public opinion. Well, at least until now.
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On the radio, I'm not hearing that kind of talk. A lot of alumni are sick that he's coming back.
This is also a situation where I'd really like more information. Despite not having any connections to Texas Tech, the whole Mike Leach situation was incredibly bizarre, and I didn't believe for a second that he punished a player for a concussion.
DJ Durkin allowed an abusive culture on his watch. That's why he should be fired. If he had no idea that what was happening would lead to the death or severe injury of a player? I'd like more info on that before I internally convict him of that.
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That is a fair assessment. But it's like you said, he allowed the abusive culture. He very well may have had zero clue of what was going on. But it was the culture that he instilled that allowed it to happen. Therefore, he is responsible and I think the criticisms of Durkin are called for
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Honestly, they don't have far to fall. They don't get any kids from the DC-B'more corridor, donations have gone down, Terp alum hated Loh and the football program. It's pretty bleak now. If loluva wasn't so apathetic towards their program, it would be lolUMD.
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Thanks for posting this. I think the turnout at the rally will give a realistic gauge to the overall sentiment of the student body. It is heartening they are at least making their opinion heard.
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Yea I am not seeing that at all, at least where I looked. I took a gander over on their 247 page and all of them are embarrassed to be an alumni of MD.
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Loh is a dufus that has done as little as possible that's allowed him to look ok thru this. He hired Evans. (Who was present when the player died, and did nothing to investigate directly after or when he was promoted to head AD a few weeks later.) He's been on watch while the Cole renovations run $200mil over. He's ignored the report about strength and conditioning and their roll in the athletic department.
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DJ and Chris are cousins. Lefty and Durkin were on UF's staff for one year together- Lefty as the QB coach and Durkin as the LB coach. I doubt Chris' commitment to VT had anything to do with their relationship outside of DJ probably saying "yeah I worked with that guy for a year, he doesn't suck"
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This could not have been done more poorly. They tried the Urban Myer playbook on this one, but no one at UMD actually cares about their football team, so this is the result.
It should all have been the play from the beginning.
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Bold move if true. He basically did what should have been done against his bosses wishes. With the public outcry against bringing Durkin back, Loh is daring them to fire him now and to make this terrible situation and make it even worse.
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I don't know how bold it really was. The entire state of Maryland is in an uproar, to the point where Maryland voters would have eventually figured out how to call their representatives and complain, since they're funding the University of Maryland.
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Damn I am glad they left us for the Big 11, what a shitshow. Listening to the Sports Junkies right now is pretty hilarious since they are all UMD alums...
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Probably should have the mods edit the title. Suggest "Maryland reinstates DJ Durkin, then fires him the next day". Never mind, I can't think of anything clever to suggest.
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This whole saga is going to be studied and dissected in Sports & Business Management for decades to come. At every possible step Maryland did the exact wrong thing until the President went rogue and terminated Durkin's contract. From a PR standpoint, this couldn't have possibly blown up in their faces anymore.
And to top it off... they are playing Michigan State this weekend on ESPN.
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More issues at Maryland - backup punter says he was attacked at the end of practice for speaking out against Durkin.
In the wake of University of Maryland football coach DJ Durkin's brief reinstatement Tuesday, discord over the football program erupted in a fight among team players. https://t.co/aiR8kIihOr— The Baltimore Sun (@baltimoresun) November 1, 2018
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The Sun kinda buried the lede here a bit. They didn't attack him because he was outspoken, they attacked him because he spoke to investigators...
Barber, of Mechanicsburg, Pa., said word had gotten around on the team that he is a "whistle-blower" who talked to investigators about problems on the team. When Durkin returned to practice Tuesday to watch the team practice, his supporters on the team felt emboldened and began taunting Barber, he said. Some mocked and insulted him, while others threw footballs at him, Barber said.
Toward the end of the practice, another player attacked Barber, attempting to punch him in the face, Barber said. While the two teammates were fighting, others tried to intervene and grabbed Barber's arms behind his back, he said. That allowed the other player to punch Barber repeatedly in the face, leaving him with a black eye, needing multiple stitches on his forehead and a dislocated shoulder, Barber said.
"My jersey was bloody," Barber says. "I had blood all over my hands."
Good thing that Maryland found the program to not be toxic. Could you imagine how bad this would be if it was?
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Good god... players holding their teammate back so he could get his ass beat? Disgrace. Yeah Durkin has total control over that program and is a real leader /s
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Unfortunately, Mason Baggett, former Hokie Football player, and Mike Gentry protege is apart of the Strength and Conditioning Staff during these events. I am guessing he probably lost his job too.
I can tell you that he was a very nice guy, and I couldn't see him being apart of the terrible thing that happened.
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Comments
#Sauce?
Also, if true, they're just opening themselves up to further lawsuits. And I don't see how anyone would let their son play for him after everything that has happened, so I hope they don't have any illusions of ever advancing out of the B1G cellar.
Here in NoVA they reported it on 106.7 The Fan as well.
Plastered all over Twitter.. Bitter, Kyle Bailey, ESPN 980 all reporting it
Just sayin', the post is a little lacking in substance.
Durkin and the AD will keep their jobs while Maryland's President Loh will be allowed to retire this upcoming summer.
Once again, athletics deemed to be more important than human lives.
Maybe Maryland is a cultural fit for the SEC
Eh, judging from the situation in Columbus maybe they fit in just fine in the B1G.
Columbus, State College, East Lansing.....
I'm Brian Kelly and I approve of this message.
Woof.
Well ain't this a load of shit
The WaPo online: "DJ Durkin and Damon Evans will retain jobs at Maryland, source says". Posted 2 hours ago.
Is my phone not working or is there nothing posted?
There's nothing posted.
well we should recruit heavily in the DC area. because I don't see how Durkin can walk in a parents house and tell them "let your kid stay with me for the next 4 years..... or however many years he has left to live.... here with me at Maryland.". The school it self will take a LONG time to recover from allowing him to come back IMO because they just basically sanctioned Durkins actions,.
Hasn't stopped ND or other such programs for courting kids.
Yea, not sorry, but the MD situation and the ND situation are apples to oranges. Both fruit, but inherently different.
Similar in the fact that the young men's deaths could have easily been avoided, but the more we learn about Durkin and his staff is that this was a cultural casualty long practiced by that coaching staff.
I agree that BK shouldn't have sent the kid up in those conditions, but I do not think that situation was the result of a chronic cultural practice woven by multiple coaches to push a player's physical capacity to the brink of, and leading to, death.
What an absolute nightmare. Days after the report came out that players were afraid to speak up.
Has the BIG or NCAA weighed in?
Maryland sucks.
This will hurt them for years to come - it's one thing to sell a kid on a school. It's another animal to sell a kid that he will not have to worry about his own health and well-being being a player on your team.
I have to wonder if this comes down to a money thing. Maryland was already broke when they decided to jump ship to the BIG10, looking at having to shut down as many as 13 varsity sports. Then take into account the $31.4 million buyout that they settled with the ACC on, the money that they are going to have to shell out to the kids family in this case and then looking at having to pay two coaching staffs, especially if they couldn't find that they did something they could fire them for cause over.
Maryland also receives a reduced version of the $51 million Big10 payout that is likely higher than any ACC school. They may be broke right now, but they are smart playing the long term game. They stand to make stupid amounts of money that will lift their program ceiling way above where it was in the ACC, possibly above ours.
I don't know if it was smart to sell their soul and integrity for football.
They should rename their school to "Under Armour".
I protest in a small way by not buying UA clothing.
There's a bad ROI, if you ask me...
I'm not sure why they sold their soul. Seems like a long line of decisions trying to leverage the athletics for academic gains. And none of the presidents of the University have been able to manage it properly. All the way back to Bias. The current President, Loh, is a complete moron. Unlike by all the alumni I talk to. The previous one was just as bad. And all of the AD's have put them further behind the 8-ball; See the $200million overage on the Cole Field House renovation.
Didn't Kevin Plank's brother got to VT? He should just start funneling all that UA money our way instead.
Are you kidding?
Kevin Plank is behind the UA takeover of Maryland. He's a major supporter of Durkin.
....other than having a player die on your watch.
I would think that would be enough, but I'm no legal expert.
May depend on how the contract was written.
Or maybe they weren't looking particularly hard for a reason, a la aOSU
Wow.
It gets better. The Maryland Board told President Loh that if he even thought about firing Durkin, they would immediately move to terminate his employment with the University.
Per the Washington Post, which I got off Deadspin
In the end, President Loh is going to resign anyway, and the Board gets to keep their coach.
Loh should fire Durkin, then immediately retire.
A move like that might almost make up for taking MD to the big twenty
Wow so he did cut Durkin loose. Amazing.
They're a bunch of weasels at Maryland.
If they couldn't fire Durkin for cause, would have cost them millions.
I guess football money was more important than the students or the university. They keep doubling down on past mistakes.
I hope the McNairs figure out how to sue them for tens of millions.
Simply put: a kid DIED on your watch. Further, it was your fault. He should've been fired on that basis alone.
No, simply put, he should have resigned once the initial grieving was over from it happening.
Agreed. But if you're going to basically be responsible for killing a player, then you're not going to be aware enough to resign. I think the civil court will take care of him.
What's more, any parent that would allow their kid to play for him after this...no words.
Evans should not keep his job. He was Assistant AD, promoted to head AD after the death, and did NOTHING until August. Even then, I'm not sure he did a lot except sit in Loh's office and listen to Loh talk on the phone. He's worthless and should not, in any way, be allowed to keep his position.
The Durkin decision bothers me. But keeping Evans and Loh disgust me to no end.
#ImWithLoh
EDIT: While Loh was delivering the news, he was still representing Maryland and did it faithfully. He's seeing out the academic year and will get a job elsewhere.
Durkin and Co.? Probably not. They're on borrowed time and I can't imagine someone else hiring them in the near term.
Well, let's weigh it out, shall we?
Loh was increasing the academic respectability of Maryland. Durkin showed the football team videos of animals devouring each other, and one of his coaches yelled "drag his ass off the field" to McNair as he suffered from heatstroke, which were some of the last words he ever heard.
This is fine.
Odds of Maryland continuing to field a team this season?
Well, the players haven't left yet.
Never underestimate the power of a good rationalization.
I thought the odds were pretty long on Durkin still being there.
I've read that a handful of players left the initial meeting where the team learned that he would be reinstated. Otherwise all I've seen are a couple of sportswriter columns encouraging the players to boycott.
Supposedly less than 5 did.
There will ALWAYS Be players who will excuse anything to get a chance to play D1 ball and maybe make the NFL.
Or, more likely, the majority of players are afraid to make a stand and lose their scholarships since the school has basically shown with their actions that they stand behind Durkin. I have a hard time blaming the players in this situation.
What you said is probably only true for a very small handful of the current players. It's not like Maryland is stocked with pro prospects.
They had one or two decent recruiting classes, but this certainly isn't going to help.
It won't happen, but wouldn't it be great if the NCAA came out said any Maryland player could transfer without penalty to any school? Essentially cut the legs out from under Maryland.
TFW shit is so corrupt
They're still gonna have a better recruiting class than us aren't they?
I have to assume that recruiting is the only reason boosters want to keep him. It's not like he is making them some power in the big 10
They're ranked 71st nationally with 10 commits headlined by 3* and former VT commit CB Tank Land. I doubt they make up that much ground this cycle.
I'm not seeing that Durkin has so much to sell.
I'm with the others who say he's still on borrowed time. Unless they give him an extended contract, showing they're with him for the long term.
This is disgusting and disgraceful. I could go on a long rant about this but I think that will suffice.
Yeah but they way shit is these days in this country and around the world, i'm sufficiently numb to it. People don't even care to hide it anymore. That's the worst part.
And the fans will point to the statement and say it was proven the coach did nothing wrong and will circle the wagons against common sense and decency a la Paterno.
Maryland has fans?
LOL- not in football, they do not.
Oddly, yes.
But they'll probably lose a few over this stupidity.
Not to open a can of worms on a tangent, but we all stood up and praised Steger after the 07 shootings. In retrospect (at least IMO) the University could've done more / better.
My point: I think we're not immune to rationalization either.
Just...... no.
There is no comparison. Sorry.
Wasn't meant to be a direct comparison, just that we can rationalize bad decisions ourselves into good decisions. Take that FWIW.
I understand that you are saying that our fan base can rationalize bad decisions but that goes on the assumption that Steger played some major role in the shooting happening. I, and a lot of other people, completely disagree with that. It's a terrible comparison at rationalizing two things that aren't anywhere near apples to oranges.
If you wanted to attempt to make that comparison, you could say that the VT fan base rationalizes Michael Vick's trangsressions as not as bad because we love what he did for VT football. Still, that's apples to oranges, but bringing 4/16 into this is not ok in my opinion.
...The whole point is showing how fan bases will rationalize bad decisions made by our administrators. Quite frankly I don't care if ppl think it's "not ok in their opinion"; no one's doing a direct comparison of child molestation to neglect during a school shooting, but how we tell ourselves that we're still good and love our school most certainly is the same mentality.
Your point is valid, but your example is based on what a lot of folks would consider a flawed premise. I can't expand beyond that because it would take us down a very bad rabbit hole that would go against community guidelines.
I guess that's up to personal interpretation. It's not flawed premiss in my mind at all.
Well this is a bad take.
I bumped you since even bad opinions should not be downvoted.
I did, too, but the score went from -6 to -6.
Appreciate it man. I do not live / die by votes on TKP, so i'm ok regardless. But +1 back at you.
The coach didn't do a dang thing... And that is the problem.
I visited a few Maryland blogs to see what the overall fan reaction on this was. It turned my stomach. They are all ecstatic he's coming back and completely absolving him, saying he's not a medical professional so he should not be held responsible. I am just in disbelief, but I guess I shouldn't be
It is disgusting to defend it, but he will be fired soon enough for his 4-567 record in the B1G. He won't be there much longer.
I agree, but even after he's gone it will still leave a sour taste in my mouth. Time and again universities, fans of implicated universities, and the NCAA have proven that they really don't give a damn about doing the right thing. Its all about wins and the almighty dollar
This appears to be a financial calculation.
They didn't want to pay his $2.5 million a year in addition to another coach. Plus some influential boosters (looking at you, Kevin Plank, still like him).
A penny wise and a dollar stupid, but that's how Maryland has been for a while.
Similar to when the old AD wanted to fire Fridge. The Governor refused to sign off on the buy-out...and told her if she wanted him gone to raise money from the Terrapin Club donors to do so. He coached another season, the final in his contract.
I could be wrong, but wouldn't they owe him 0 dollars if they fire him "for cause". Seems like a player dying from abuse would qualify as "for cause" unless you were twisting yourself into any and every knot possible to claim otherwise.
I agree, but it doesn't sound like they're firing him for cause, which would mean an additional lawsuit and even more bad PR.
I've got to believe they're smart enough to have thoroughly reviewed the situation and his contract from a legal perspective, but I also thought firing Durkin would have been an easy decision.
They would honestly begin to salvage whatever good reputation they have left if they tried to fire him for cause, and stood firm on not paying him a dime going forward. It would show they care, it would show they cared about MacNair and would show they're at least attempting to do the right thing. And any additional lawsuit that was filed by Durkin against them to recoup the money would only further help UMd out, as they would just have to keep reiterating "you killed a fucking kid, and all you care about is money, go fuck yourself you disgusting prick".
And if they lost the lawsuit and still had to pay, people would actually feel sorry for them, which is a complete 180 from where they are now.
If they've got no case, it's a waste of time, and they should know if they have a case by now. They should be pragmatic.
But firing Durkin was a no-brainer three months ago, so having the Board of Regents pressuring Loh to retain him is a real head-scratcher, and shows that they are completely out of touch with reality.
It looks like some football boosters who like Durkin swayed the board to keep him. The students will be in full revolt over that.
if "you killed a player" isn't grounds for a "for cause" firing, I don't know what is. You'd think that 'ensure your players don't die as a direct result of your coaching' should be a clause in there somewhere.
I agree, in part.
But it depends on how the contract is written.
Negligence can be very difficult to assign to an individual, and those contracts are written by lawyers who know how to weasel out of liability. The university is probably where the blame is going to lie.
It may well be a "Don't go away mad, just go away" situation for Durkin.
I can't imagine that Durkin can hire a better legal team than the University of Maryland.
If it really does end up happening that Maryland allowed themselves to get into a contract where their coaching staffs are so well protected that they can literally be so negligent in their training that it directly leads to the death of players, and you still can't fire them without buyout payments, they deserve all the bad publicity and PR they have gotten and will continue to get. Seriously, how is the bare minimum requirement not "don't directly cause a player to die" on these contracts?
You keep saying "don't directly cause a player to die", but he didn't directly cause it. It was during summer workouts when the coaches are on limited contact with players and the workouts are being run by the S&C staff. That, I imagine, is the sticking point in the "for cause" argument.
And before I get jumped on for "defending" him. I'm not in the least. Just pointing out a potential sticking point. It also can't help UMDs case that the investigation found him to be not at fault.
They wanted to fire him.
They were hoping the report and investigation would find a way to point at least 1 finger at DJ to fire him for cause.
The report showed he had limited contact during that time, and wasn't "for cause".
They "made" the S&C coach "retire," which let their main scapegoat free. Major point here...and the reason why many higher-ups (see L'ville) are put on administrative leave. So they can drop the real hammer instead of letting them slink away scot free.
They have a MAJOR (read +/-$40million) change order for the completion of Cole Field house which wasn't originally budgeted. Opps. (Coulda used a VT Construction Manager, amiright.)
The buy-out on Durkin is/was $5.5million.
The Governor will not authorize that payment willy-nilly because the University mishandled the situation from the jump. And they already are way over on Cole.
Wallace Loh speaks from the hip, thinks outside even the outside of the box, and has repeated made terrible decisions. He was on extremely thin ice before May 2018. He said things and made decisions in the past few months that have not sat well with anyone at UMD; especially the board of regents.
All of that leads to money making decisions, decisions being made by people that shouldn't be making them, and a complete dufus-like situation.
There were a lot of players that wanted to play for Durkin. Others did not. At the end of the day, Durkin was found to not be "at-cause" for the incident. He may have a strange, non-traditional football atmosphere; which kids may not want to be a part of. And I get that. I do. Like Fly, not defending him, just saying...
I don't think that board wanted to fire him. I think some of their large money donors wanted to keep him.
One in particular, who pretends not to pull the strings over there.
The problem is, based on my understanding, is that two separate investigations basically cleared him of any criminal or negligent wrongdoing. You can't fire for cause without that. Was he a piece of @$*&, yes. Did he screw up uncategorically, yes. Did he mean for anybody to die, no.
I don't believe "for cause" is limited to criminal or negligent wrong-doing. "For cause" can be violation of policy to such an extreme to warrant immediate termination. These are typically spelled out in the policy.
The question of whether something he did was criminal is beside the fact of whether he did something that breached "for cause termination" policies.
Listening to the Governor's sound clip..."It's about time" when asked about firing Durkin...it seems that there was a push to fire him for cause to avoid buying him out. Bringing him back, then firing him the next day most likely opened the pay-day vault for DJ. And if they bulk, he'll sue them and cost them way more than what they owe him.
Maybe, or maybe that governor knows the politics.
His $5 million payout just wasn't that much.
Maryland does have some big donors, though, and I'm guessing they had some influence in this fiasco. Certainly wasn't anyone who reads the papers and cares about the court of public opinion. Well, at least until now.
On the radio, I'm not hearing that kind of talk. A lot of alumni are sick that he's coming back.
This is also a situation where I'd really like more information. Despite not having any connections to Texas Tech, the whole Mike Leach situation was incredibly bizarre, and I didn't believe for a second that he punished a player for a concussion.
DJ Durkin allowed an abusive culture on his watch. That's why he should be fired. If he had no idea that what was happening would lead to the death or severe injury of a player? I'd like more info on that before I internally convict him of that.
That is a fair assessment. But it's like you said, he allowed the abusive culture. He very well may have had zero clue of what was going on. But it was the culture that he instilled that allowed it to happen. Therefore, he is responsible and I think the criticisms of Durkin are called for
Also....
From the four letter:
Maryland students to protest DJ Durkin's reinstatement: 'We demand justice for Jordan McNair'
Maryland will regret not canning him.. in a big way.
I think they will.
They've given a lot of reason to Maryland alumni to dislike their program and what it says about their university.
Honestly, they don't have far to fall. They don't get any kids from the DC-B'more corridor, donations have gone down, Terp alum hated Loh and the football program. It's pretty bleak now. If loluva wasn't so apathetic towards their program, it would be lolUMD.
Thanks for posting this. I think the turnout at the rally will give a realistic gauge to the overall sentiment of the student body. It is heartening they are at least making their opinion heard.
Yea I am not seeing that at all, at least where I looked. I took a gander over on their 247 page and all of them are embarrassed to be an alumni of MD.
Yeah I probably let Testudo Times paint my comprehension of the overall fan reaction on the other sites I looked at
Here are two excellent articles about this decision. I agree with Sports Illustrated that they've gone and made this worse.
Sports Illustrated: Bringing him back was costlier than dumping him
Washington Post, Feinstein: They took a tragedy and made it worse
I have to admit that Loh
is a man of his convictions. He certainlydidn't have to resign over this.Edit: The student government association is organizing a protest for Thursday called "Justice for Jordan McNair".
Loh is a dufus that has done as little as possible that's allowed him to look ok thru this. He hired Evans. (Who was present when the player died, and did nothing to investigate directly after or when he was promoted to head AD a few weeks later.) He's been on watch while the Cole renovations run $200mil over. He's ignored the report about strength and conditioning and their roll in the athletic department.
Yeah, you're right.
I didn't like his Big 10 decision, but at least he resigned when the board stepped all over him to retain Durkin.
He was on his way out anyway. If the McNair death hadn't happened, he might have already been gone by now.
Interesting choice of motivational videos...
Nothing gets me pumped up for the day quite like LiveLeak.
That's... Just... Weird...
When will people stop giving dead eyed psychopaths positions of power
Leg for Casually Explained.
Isn't DJ Durkin the uncle of former VT player and Lefty recruit, Chris Durkin?
In fact, isn't Chris' commitment to VT attributable to his uncles relationship to Loefler?
DJ and Chris are cousins. Lefty and Durkin were on UF's staff for one year together- Lefty as the QB coach and Durkin as the LB coach. I doubt Chris' commitment to VT had anything to do with their relationship outside of DJ probably saying "yeah I worked with that guy for a year, he doesn't suck"
UPDATE:
he gone
(as usual, a day late (literally!) & dollar short)
#goderps
Wow...not surprised but this is the only way they could botch it more. Say he's back Tuesday then fire him Wednesday.
What a debacle.
They were probably trying to test the water to see if they could avoid buying him out.
And all it took was torching their reputation to make it happen
Get all the benefit of paying for the buyout and flushing your PR down the shitter all in one!
What a clown show.
This could not have been done more poorly. They tried the Urban Myer playbook on this one, but no one at UMD actually cares about their football team, so this is the result.
It should all have been the play from the beginning.
Wow.
If there was a more awkward way of doing this, I can't think of it.
They got to the right decision, but only after proving that they have no scruples whatsoever.
According to the article in the Washington post, it sounds like Lou went off script and made this decision himself.
Bold move if true. He basically did what should have been done against his bosses wishes. With the public outcry against bringing Durkin back, Loh is daring them to fire him now and to make this terrible situation and make it even worse.
Loh already "retired."
I don't know how bold it really was. The entire state of Maryland is in an uproar, to the point where Maryland voters would have eventually figured out how to call their representatives and complain, since they're funding the University of Maryland.
I thought it was pretty bold... Though you're right, if the governor and a congressman publicly get your back you don't have to be too bold
Damn I am glad they left us for the Big 11, what a shitshow. Listening to the Sports Junkies right now is pretty hilarious since they are all UMD alums...
What is their take on it?
Most embarrasing school scandal ever, abit of hyperbole but still amusing
Meanwhile, on reddit:
Worst PR Battle
Classic.
Probably should have the mods edit the title. Suggest "
Maryland reinstates DJ Durkin, then fires him the next day". Never mind, I can't think of anything clever to suggest."
lolMurland"Yeah, nevermind. Really isn't a laughing matter given the nexus of the entire thing. Just the handling of it lately has been a debacle.
This whole saga is going to be studied and dissected in Sports & Business Management for decades to come. At every possible step Maryland did the exact wrong thing until the President went rogue and terminated Durkin's contract. From a PR standpoint, this couldn't have possibly blown up in their faces anymore.
And to top it off... they are playing Michigan State this weekend on ESPN.
More issues at Maryland - backup punter says he was attacked at the end of practice for speaking out against Durkin.
Cool that they'll go after the backup punter but not the linemen who were putting the decision to retain Durkin on blast two days ago.
After the past 5 months, this isn't an issue, but more of a cocktail party given everything else that's occured.
I am just waiting for the next bit of stupidity from UMD to materialize.
I have no idea where they could go from here, but I have no doubts they will find a way.
They need to fire their PR firm, because they're getting some baaaaaaaaaad advice.
The Sun kinda buried the lede here a bit. They didn't attack him because he was outspoken, they attacked him because he spoke to investigators...
Good thing that Maryland found the program to not be toxic. Could you imagine how bad this would be if it was?
The new coach is going to have some purging to do. The Maryland-Rutgers game is going to be the slap fight of the year for a few years.
Good god... players holding their teammate back so he could get his ass beat? Disgrace. Yeah Durkin has total control over that program and is a real leader /s
Durkin hasn't been associated w the program for some time. You can't pin that incident on him.
"When Durkin returned to practice Tuesday to watch the team practice, his supporters on the team felt emboldened and began taunting Barber ...."
Glad you found your goat.
Unfortunately, Mason Baggett, former Hokie Football player, and Mike Gentry protege is apart of the Strength and Conditioning Staff during these events. I am guessing he probably lost his job too.
I can tell you that he was a very nice guy, and I couldn't see him being apart of the terrible thing that happened.
Currently listed on staff; still there.
I mean let's be honest... given how UMD has handled this whole situation I wouldn't necessarily take that to mean he's innocent.
Woah...You have no clue. I wouldn't be so quick to imply somebodies guilt in the death of another person.
Not implying anything other than I don't trust Maryland to properly make that evaluation.
James Brady, chair of the university board of regents, has resigned.
Every time I see this, I think "I need to watch that movie again." Then, I don't watch it and history repeats itself.
The entire board of regents should be gone, or at least has some 'splainin to do.
I mean, what were they thinking?
Something along the lines of