Dave G's Dugout

Maryland Needs a Change

      Gary Williams is the backbone of Maryland Basketball, the man responsible for turning the program around after its collapse in the wake of NCAA violations and Len Bias's death. He's a Hall of Fame coach, the winner of over 600 games, and he's only six years removed from a national championship. Williams is also one of the best in-game coaches I have ever seen; a Williams-coached team is capable of winning any game, on any night, against any team. The problem, though, is that all these factors are adding up to less and less every year and as good a coach as Williams is, it is his own shortcomings that have led to Maryland's decline. It is clear after this season that a change is necessary at the University of Maryland, either in its head coach's philosophy or in its head coach.

     Don't get me wrong. Every program is allowed to lose. It is okay for powerhouse programs to miss the tournament occasionally, to have a few bad recruiting classes, and to drop a few games here and there to inferior teams. It happens. Duke, UNC, and UCLA all have bad years. It's not Maryland's losing that bothers me, though, so much as how we lose. Almost every year, Maryland beats some of the best teams in basketball and loses to some of the worst. We can win. We just don't. The motivation isn't always there, the leadership isn't always there, and the talent isn't always there. This isn't a case of a team having a poor run, but rather a failure of coaching philosophy that has negatively impacted this program. As much as I hate to write this, Maryland has slipped from the league of extraordinary teams.  And it's largely Williams' fault.

     Williams failure comes down to three things: recruitment, character, and motivation.

     Gary Williams is a bad recuiter. Or a lazy one. I'm not really quite sure which one. Either way, Maryland cannot seem to land any star recruits, even when its own back yard is filled with stars like Carmelo Anthony, Rudy Gay, Josh Boone, Jeff Green, Marcus Ginyard, and Roy Hibbert, all of whom went to high school in Maryland. The coach has been vocal in his distaste for one-and-done players, preferring instead to develop incomplete athletes into March heroes. He routinely recruits second- or third-tier high school players or junior college transfers (which has worked well in the case of Bambale Osby) and passes each year on the opportunity to recruit blue chip athletes. "I'd rather have a guy like Juan Dixon than a one-year guy," the coach said in a 2001 ESPN article.  "I enjoy coaching and teaching, but I don't want a Dajuan Wagner in my program for one year...Why not be a coach instead of a used car salesman?" This is an admirable sentiment, for sure, but recruiting top prospects is hardly a bad coaching technique. Wanting to develop inferior players is a great goal for any coach, but recruiting great athletes is a necessity for a top college basketball program. This is the ACC, after all, not the Patriot League. Subpar players can only win at this level if they have great players to play alongside them.

     It seems as if Williams sets out every year to make a sequel to Hoosiers, that he enjoys playing the role of the tough coach who leads an inferior team to greatness. The problem is that not every recruit has the heart and latent ability of Juan Dixon and that bringing in Dixon, Lonny Baxter, and the rest of the 2002 team was like catching lightning in a bottle. For every recruiting class that has Dixon and Baxter, there's another that has Nik Caner-Medley and Travis Garrison. For every bench that has Tahj Holden and Ryan Randle, there's another that has Will Bowers and Dave Neal. If Williams' strategy is to replicate his success in 2001 and 2002, we might be waiting a long, long time to see the Terps raise another banner. At some point, the "I don't want one-and-done players" thing becomes an excuse for poor recruitment, and Williams only has to look at his ACC rivals to know that you need at least some great players to win at this level. Besides, great players don't always leave college after one year. Tyler Hansbrough was supposed to declare for the draft after his freshman season at North Carolina. Now he's in his junior year and is the centerpiece of the NCAA's top-ranked team. If Roy Williams can keep some of his great players around for multiple seasons, there's no reason Gary Williams can't do the same. Instead, he won't even try.

     The character and maturity of the players on Williams teams also leaves a lot to be desired. During my four years at Maryland, several players were arrested or left the team for issues relating to character. Nik Caner-Medley was arrested in the whole "I'm from Maryland, and nobody can beat me!" incident, leading the student body to label him as a "classless thug". Travis Garrison was arrested for sexual assault. John Gilchrist left the team or was booted because of his attitude and Chris McCray flunked out of school mid-season because he didn't have the discipline to go to class. Gary talks at length about "being a coach" but a big part of being a coach is being a teacher. Basketball coaches, unlike their football counterparts, only have a handful of players to look after and are supposed to provide the discipline and guidance to keep these kids out of trouble. Do you think John Wooden's kids would run around breaking the law? Dean Smith's? What do you think Bobby Knight would do if his students weren't going to class? Or would they even dare to skip class for fear of what Knight would do to them? Almost as disappointing is the fact that the graduation rate among Maryland basketball players is routinely last in the ACC and is now last in the entire NCAA. None of the scholarship players that entered school between 1997 and 2000 graduated from the University.

     This brings me to the subject of motivation and on-the-court maturity, of which the Terps routinely have very little. Maryland basketball is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. Gary Williams' program has become a model of inconsistency, alternating brilliant games of inspired play with zero-effort performances that leave fans annoyed and confused. This season alone, Maryland beat the top-ranked and then-undefeated Tar Heels in one of the hardest fought games I've ever seen the Terps play, but they also lost uninspired contests to bottomfeeders like American University and Ohio University. As the season wound down and the Terps found themselves in the familiar position of having to battle for a tournament berth, they faced two must-win games versus Clemson and Virginia. These were the two worst games I have ever seen this team play, not just because they lost but because they gave the games away. The Terps squandered a twenty-point lead in the second half to Clemson and then with their backs to the wall against Virginia, they all but forgot how to play defense and let the Cavs blow them away by 15. During a timeout, "Bambale Osby grabbed the jerseys of teammates, imploring them to be more aggressive. 'I'm like, 'Man, trip him up, push him, do something, dude,'' Osby said after the game. 'Don't just let him get that, man. The guys' faces were just blank. That's not the response you want, not at this stage of the game.'" Greivis Vasquez, who Williams has failed to control on the court, added, "There was absolutely no effort on defense."

     I don't like losing, but I understand that it happens. What I don't understand is giving up and that's exactly what the Terps did in these two games. When the stakes were the highest and the entire postseason was on the line, Maryland just gave up. That's been the Terps' trademark for the last several years, the ability to lose badly in must-win games. No matter who the players are, no matter who the opponent is, Maryland seems to always collapse down the stretch. A Gary Williams team can win any game, sure, but it can also lose any game. I've waited until late in this piece to say this, but I just can't see a Mike Krzyzewski- or a Roy Williams-coached team giving up in the middle of a critical game. It doesn't happen. Yet every year, Maryland can't get sufficiently pumped up for the most important games of the season. That's a poor reflection of the team's leadership and especially of its coach.

     Williams' recruitment philosophy and lack of leadership have caused Maryland to slip to the middle of the pack in the ACC. Every season has become a quick rush to get an inexperienced squad to gel properly, followed by a few upset wins, a few inexplicable losses, and then a general collapse down the stretch. Even the 2004 campaign looked to have been a complete bust before John Gilchrist turned into a superhero during the ACC Tournament. Williams begins each season in a weak position due to poor recruiting and then fails to keep his team motivated enough to step up when it matters most. Or maybe he pushes them too hard - we've all seen his courtside antics. Either way, he seems to miss the mark when it comes to getting the most out of his team during the point in the season when teams either have to win or go home. The University of Maryland owes everything it has accomplished to Gary Williams, but at some point that fails to be enough to keep him around. The past six seasons have looked remarkably similar to each other and all six teams have suffered from the same symptoms of poor leadership. Maryland owes Gary Williams everything, but it no longer owes him a job. If Gary wants to see another championship banner raised to the rafters of the Comcast Center, he either needs to change his philosophy or make room for a new coach.

A Legend Bids Farewell

    Brett Favre retired this week after 17 years in the National Football League, leaving Packers fans devastated and leaving the rest of the sporting world to wonder what exactly he meant to the NFL. My opinion: Everything. Brett Favre embodies everything we could ever want in a professional athlete. Records, championships, awards, leadership, longevity, looks, class, and grit. Number Four had it all. He might not have won four Super Bowls and he might not have won in every stage of his career, but when you look at the complete package that was wrapped up and given to us in a green and yellow jersey, Brett Favre has to go down as the most complete quarterback of all time - and perhaps our era's greatest player.

    Favre's numbers speak for themselves. His 61,665 yards and 442 touchdowns are both iconic records and make Favre the most productive quarterback of all time. Some, including ESPN's Sal Paolantonio, make the argument that Favre's numbers were a product of his longevity and that those stats do not accurately reflect his performance on the field. I disagree. Strongly. The previous holder of both records, Dan Marino, played just as long as Favre and with far less success. Marino never won a Super Bowl (the best and most common argument against his greatness), won only one MVP award to Favre's three, and turned in a disappointing performance in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Favre only had one losing season in his sixteen years in Green Bay (2005) and took the Packers to the playoffs 11 times, the Super Bowl twice, and brought Green Bay its first championship in nearly thirty years. As for the longevity questions, the man won 13 games in his final season, threw for almost 4,000 yards, and led his team a Lawrence Tynes field goal away from Super Bowl 42. I think it's safe to say he left the game with gas in the tank.

    Paolantonio argues, rather strongly, that the lackluster second half of Favre's career greatly diminishes his legacy. I understand where Sal's coming from here. Number Four did throw a lot of interceptions and made a ton of questionable passes toward the end. But once we take a deeper look into his situation, it is easy to see that Favre's passing woes have less to do with his own failures than they have to do with the lack of talent surrounding him. Favre played his entire career in Green Bay without any stud receivers. He never had a dependable deep threat like Marvin Harrison or Randy Moss or a game-changing, slot receiver like Wes Welker. He had a some very good options (Sterling Sharpe, Antonio Freeman, and most recently Donald Driver) but imagine what he could have accomplished if he played the majority of his career with Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, and Dallas Clark to throw to, as Peyton Manning has. Favre also has never had the luxury of phenomenal backs to take the pressure off his passing game. If he had Emmitt Smith behind him, as Aikman did, or Edgerrin James and then Joseph Addai, as Manning has, he wouldn't have had to throw as much in recent years and his interception totals would be significantly lower. For years, Favre has been asking - no, begging - for some help and the Packers made absolutely no effort to get him a premier receiver, even when Randy Moss was on the market last year. The Packers knew they had a great team with Super Bowl potential going into 2007, but they passed on the one player who a) would have put them over the top and b) who the greatest player in franchise history desperately wanted on the team. Imagine how different the 2007 campaign might have looked if Moss played in Green Bay instead of New England. For sixteen years, Favre did more with less and accomplished what he did in the harshest weather environment in professional sports and surrounded by far inferior talent than the other great quarterbacks of his era.

    As impressive as his stats and wins, though, is the fact that he did it all for so long without any breaks, and without any physical help. From his first start with the Packers to his last game, in the NFC Championship Game this year, Favre never missed a single start. His Ripken-esque streak of 275 consecutive starts is an NFL record and is especially impressive when you consider that he did most of it without the assistance of painkillers. In 1996, Favre became addicted to Vicodine after being prescribed the drug following a series of injuries. He entered rehab, went public with his illness, and came back the next year, drug-free to lead the Packers to a Super Bowl victory. Since, he has endured the physical stress of over a decade of professional football without the aid of any painkillers or drugs. Think about that. A quarterback never missing a start in sixteen years while not being able to numb any pain he endures by playing. It's incredible. Favre has also played through an array of personal hardships -- the addiction and subsequent media attention for one, but also his wife Deanna's battle with breast cancer and his father's sudden death of a heart attack at the age of 58. The day after his father's death in 2003, Favre suited up against the Oakland Raiders on Monday Night Football and threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns, just another example of his iron will and his ability to play through any challenge life threw him.

    Brett Favre has been a model player over the past two decades, but he has also been a great role model for his millions of fans in Green Bay and across the world. His Brett Favre Fourward Foundation has donated over $1.5 million to disabled and disadvantaged kids in Wisconsin and Mississippi and Deanna Favre's Hope Foundation has helped others fight the disease she was lucky enough to survive. The thing about his charitable activities, though, is that we're not at all surprised by them. There has always been something accessible about Favre, a good guy quality about him that you couldn't help but admire. You could root against him, for sure, but it was almost impossible not to like him. Favre is the most prolific passer of all time, a three-time MVP and Super Bowl Champion, and the greatest football icon of my lifetime. But while Tom Brady is the pretty boy of the NFL and Peyton Manning is the poster boy, Brett Favre is just a farm boy. He's just your average guy who happens to be perhaps the greatest quarterback of all time. The kid from Kiln, Mississippi never dated supermodels or pop stars and he never donned a funny moustache on national television. He never threw to superstars and never had a stud running back to take the pressure of the passing game. Favre's game was his own and he played it with grit and guts unrivaled by any quarterback we've seen. Soon, Canton will call and Favre will smile in bronze in the halls of greatness, the last stop in the man's journey through every up and down football has to offer. Favre started every game for sixteen years and battled injury, addiction, and heartache to do it. And through it all, Number 4 kept his head down and played his game - and played it as well, if not better, than anyone before him.