Maryland just lost its best athletic director ever at the worst possible time.
Debbie Yow exits to a similar post at N.C. State as the Terps football program heads for another awful year that will end coach Ralph Friedgen’s 10-year tenure. Meanwhile, the expanded football stadium has many empty seats exasperating its debt.
While basketball is king in College Park, football is second and things look nasty. A new AD faces a colossal choice right away, and it’s not assistant coach James Franklin, who gets a $1 million fee if not chosen.
Meanwhile, Maryland might not pick Yow’s successor until retiring university president Dan Mote is replaced.
Yow recommended Connecticut director of athletics and Maryland graduate Jeff Hathaway as her replacement, but it either gets done in coming weeks or Maryland may wait until year’s end once Mote’s replacement arrives. Rival recruiters will feast on this instability.
Certainly, it was a good time for Yow to exit. She did everything possible in 16 years at Maryland from trimming 90 percent of an inherited $50 million deficit to building Comcast Center. And the school won 20 national titles under her tenure, including the 2002 men’s basketball championship.
N.C. State’s sudden opening was a homecoming opportunity for Yow. Wearing a ring from her late sister Kay Yow — N.C. State’s women’s basketball coach for 34 seasons until last year — and late mother’s watch, the Gibsonville, N.C., native and lifelong Wolfpack fan saw a chance to end her stellar career around remaining family.
“People have seasons in their lives and I’m enthusiastically entering into a new season in my life,” said Yow during an introductory Friday news conference. “It’s really good to be home where I was born and raised.”
Ironically, Yow didn’t even tell her sister Susan, who was N.C. State’s first women’s basketball All-American, about the job on Thursday night despite news reports. It was an unexpected whirlwind 10-day romance before Yow accepted on Friday.
“Life is complex,” Yow said. “I gave every ounce of focus, my strength, my energy to Maryland for 16 years. I don’t regret it.”
Yow should be remembered as Maryland’s best athletic director over Jim Kehoe for the same reason Gary Williams is the school’s greatest basketball coach over Lefty Driesell. While Kehoe and Driesell built the school’s athletic program in the 1970s, Yow and Williams elevated it to national success over the past decade.
Can Yow do it again at N.C. State, which is the third wheel in the state behind Duke and North Carolina?
“I’m not Mary Poppins. I’m not na?ve. I know what it takes. We will do that,” she said. “Every day is game day for an administrator. I don’t have a great need to be popular. I’d rather win than be popular.”
Rick Snider has covered local sports since 1978. Read more at TheRickSniderReport.com and Twitter @Snide_Remarks or e-mail [email protected].
