Last year the University of Maryland commissioned an investigation into the culture of their football program. It was originally commissioned by Loh,the University President, after ESPN did an expose of their culture, but was taken over by the Board of Regents.
When the report came out, it was as much political cover as anything else, and gave the Board of Regents a lot of leeway over what actions to take. So the Board decided to keep DJ Durkin, the coach, and get rid of Loh, the President, at the end of the year. After a public revolt and under threats of student protest in College Park, Loh fired Durkin the next day. That part is old news.
What's new is that the Washington Post has found out what the report cost: $1.57 million. Turns out half of the eight commission members made six figures off the report, and the law firm involved made $636,000. Not bad for two months work.
Turns out telling the people who commissioned your study what they want to hear is pretty lucrative. Probably a new model for future universities that need to investigate themselves.
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What will we find out next about college football, that the NCAA isn't fair and consistent in their judgments and rulings?
Interesting read though, thanks for sharing
NCAA finishes beheading Mizzou while telling UNC to go to their room until dinner
Sounds like Maryland needs a new Board of Regents
And then there is this...
I heard something along the lines that Loh sticking around another year because the Board of Regents hadn't gotten around to conducting a serious recruitment/search for a replacement.
I know Im biased as a Hokie Alum. As a DC resident for the last 5 years, I cant say Im shocked. Maryland is a dump, tell me im wrong. They have had bad guidance overall, especially leaving the ACC. Say what you will about that but its having a lingering effect that Maryland didnt think about. College Park wishes they could be a cool quaint College town like Blacksburg.
I know for a fact that Maryland has had a tough time selling both football/basketball season tickets with the BIG schedule. So many Terps miss the old ACC rivalries and to be able to have sports chatter at work. You cant force Rutgers as a rival on Terp fans...
They did the "soulless" money grab in their move to the Big 10. It had Kevin Plank's (Founder of Under Armour) fingerprints all over it. They also slashed a lot of their other sports so they'd have more football money.
It's as if someone who didn't grasp the concept of football engineered it. Not that they had a big rival, but they did disregard their history in the ACC, and they did have some. I don't think they considered that everyone else in the Big 10 also has the money you have, and you have to play them EVERY YEAR.
If Maryland couldn't make it in the ACC
CoastalAtlantic, how did they think they could make it in the Big 10 East? They were so focused on making their 3 star players into beasts that they lost their focus on safety and ended up killing one of them in a very preventable situation. Not only are they paying Durkin the value of his contract, they'll likely be writing a sizeable check to the McNairs.But they have managed to rope the taxpayers into subsidizing their new athletic facilities by moving their sports medicine academic program into the same building. Genius! Soon everyone will be doing that.
Not disagreeing the Maryland's Athletic Department has been horribly mismanaged, just a head's up:
-Maryland was in the Atlantic not the Coastal
-Clemson slashed some other sports out completely to focus more money on football, so it isn't necessarily unheard of or a sign of a failing program.
Yeah, Clemson couldn't afford to continue to run a swimming program because they really needed the money for laser tag and indoor golf.
Ya gotta have your priorities.
To be fair, if performance is measured by results, it worked out pretty well for them.
Their home schedule is about 10x more attractive than ours. They won and NCAA soccer title this year. Hoops ranked.
Thanks to thinking like yours we didn't pursue the SEC, despite what would have likely been an increased ability to draw recruits from our main tv markets or what should be our main tv markets. As the nothern most outpost of the sec on the eastern seaboard, we would have drawn more successfully from some great football areas.
Too bad we don't have someone like Plank to help guide our administration. Although hats off for the Amazon coup.
Meanwhile we are stuck with carolina old boy network leadership. Keep beliving that ACC tv revenue is going to approach B10, SEC levels
College park is in fact an inner beltway dump- souless concrete traffic, yes. But they never wished to be Blacksburg.. they wished more to be Northwestern or USC or Rutgers. They call VT people rednecks.
So how exactly does one become a football culture investigator? Seriously, I screwed up somewhere in life by busting my ass in engineering school.
Blame yo momma for not marrying a rich good ole boy douchebag.
I mean, this doesn't sound absurd to me. This is 6 lawyers, each billing on average about $800/hour (far from unheard of), working 40 hours/week for 8 weeks.
This is just a lose-lose for Maryland - if they do only an internal investigation, then it's biased. If try to do an external investigation on the cheap, they're not paying for the right people to do the right job. If you pay too much for an external investigation, you're wasting tax dollars. Unless it turns out that the probe was biased, or somehow compromised, I see this as a non-issue.
This is why you don't want your school getting in situations like this to begin with. Once something tragic happens, there's no way to undo it, and every action you take will be scrutinized to the nth degree.
The law firm part was $636,000. That's probably not completely unreasonable for doing a bunch of interviews, writing a report and having it overseen by some really expensive lawyers.
I think the objection was to the other $1 million, which went to the big names on the commission. I'm not sure how or why they picked or decided what to pay those guys. Doug Williams isn't a lawyer. Half of those got over $100K for two months work. The end result was a 200 page report.
More importantly, if you're going to hire an "independent" commission, the law firm doing it and the people on it should be unrelated to your program. You can't have it composed of prominent people inside your state. They're clearly going to be biased towards your program if they want to continue living there. The only thing independent about the commission was that they weren't directly under the employ of the university when the commission was formed. They were friends of the Board of Regents.
I don't know who Doug Williams is, but what's his earning rate at his regular job? If he owns a consultancy or something, two months of his time is probably worth over $100k. Again, I just don't see the issue with the money.
So this is the larger issue - is the commission compromised? Just because these are well known people that live in the state of Maryland doesn't necessarily mean they're sympathetic to UMD. If these are alum or people connected with the program, then it's definitely an issue.
Doug Williams was a QB for the Washington Redskins in the 1980's. First black QB to win a Super Bowl. His day job is ex-QB who won the Super Bowl.
I seriously doubt they were all that independent, but they were well compensated for their efforts, and basically came up with a report that didn't say much.
We got a LOT more information out of the ESPN reporting on it, so maybe they needed to hire some journalists.
He's also the Washington Redskins "Director of player personnel" - but I agree with your point.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
...And replaced an abusive scrumbag with ... drumroll... a scumbag. Watching the money burn in a pit would have been more productive.
Should be noted the Loh originally formed the commission to investigate. The Board of Regets took it over after it was created, and then added 5 additional members.
Board takes over
New appointees
Yeah, Loh commissions an investigation, and the Board of Regents a) takes it over, and b) puts enough people on it to outnumber the people Loh formed it with.
The Chairman of the Board of Regents really didn't like Loh. He resigned in humiliation after Loh fired Durkin.
Loh is hated there. And they've been trying to find a way to get rid of him.
They outnumbered what he put on there because Loh had an agenda to save his face in the situation.
The fact that Loh is coming back is a disgrace. And the Terp alum I know are humiliated that he's staying.
Just out of curiosity, why'd they extend him for a year? I thought it was settled that he was leaving this year, and they just announced that he's staying another year now.
Haven't heard why yet...I'll keep my ears open.
Might be money, and the previous turnover. They seem to go thru them in College Park. And they are paying DJ not to be there now. Governor may have nix cutting more checks for no-work.
Absolutely disgusting they didn't take the money they spent on this report and use it to settle with the family.
Just curious how you all get indignant about the fraud waste and abuse of this report. Didn't the same thing happen with Cho? U think Virginia lawyers and luminaries are somehow less greedy or better managed than a lawfirm from Baltimore? Anyone actually read the Cho reports? Did they say anything insightful? Thats kinda the purpose of these things is let the university who pays for the report to wash their hands of it.