There is a medical ailment that currently afflicts many sports fans across the country.
This ailment is unknown to area doctors, is not mentioned in any medical journal and won?t come up in a Google search. Fans suffering from this affliction may not even realize they have a problem, as it greatly impacts their long-term memory.
These fans? memories only go back to their favorite team?s current season. There are no memories of recent championships, Cinderella seasons or amazing rebuilding projects. One of the largest concentrations of such cases is located right in our own hometown: Maryland Terps men?s basketball fans.
How else can you explain how so many fans have forgotten everything that Maryland coach Gary Williams has done for the program since returning to his alma mater 17 years ago? Williams has made a number of mistakes through the years, but it?s important to look at his entire body of work.
Williams took over a program on probation and returned the Terps into a perennial tournament team that has reached the postseason 13 straight years. Since 1989, Maryland has a 353-191 record, won an ACC title, made 11 straight NCAA tournaments, advanced to two Final Fours and won the national title in 2002. Still, many Terps fans only remember the last two years when Maryland settled for the N.I.T. while dealing with off-the-court legal issues, players leaving school early (John Gilchrest) and academic ineligible players (Chris McCray).
“We lose (leading scorer) Chris McCray early in the ACC season and still win 19 games which I felt was a pretty good accomplishment,” Williams said. “It may have been my best coaching job.”
In recent years, Duke, Syracuse and Connecticut are just some of the teams that failed to live up to their preseason hype. But, there wasn?t frustration voiced about the coaching jobs of Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim or Jim Calhoun.
“We get thrown in the mix with professional teams like the Ravens and Orioles in Baltimore and the Redskins and Wizards in Washington,” Williams said. “People criticize those teams when things don?t go well and many people think it?s just as OK to take shots at 18- and 19-year-old kids when something goes wrong.”
Williams has been forced to make numerous changes to his coaching staff in recent years not because of poor performances, but because his assistants moved on to become head coaches. This includes Jimmy Patsos (Loyola), Dave Dickerson (Tulane) and Mike Lonergan (Vemont).
“I laugh when anyone tells me that losing assistant coaches like that is something negative,” Williams said.
When Williams gets frustrated about some of the heavy criticism that come with being a high-profile college basketball coach, he thinks about his recent trip to Kuwait where he met a number of members of the armed forces as part of Operation Hardwood II. There, he coached a team of soldiers in a tournament against teams led by other college coaches.
“A trip like that keeps everything in perspective,” he said.
Ron Snyder is a staff writer for The Examiner.
