At moments like this, as Mark Turgeon walks away from his job as coach of the University of Maryland basketball team, I have one immediate question: Has everybody here lost their minds?
Turgeon was reportedly on line to make $17 million over the next several seasons. As an employee of the university system, this is believed to be somewhat more money than, say, the average science professor earns, since science professors are only concerned with piddly stuff like finding a cure for cancer instead of important functions like the proper way to shoot a three-pointer.
We’re told that Turgeon and university officials came to a “mutual decision” on the coach’s exit. We’re also told that Turgeon’s the one who prompted the discussion and urged his own exit.
So he walks away from $17 million?
He’s reportedly grown uncomfortable in College Park. Fans were unhappy with the team’s record over its first eight games (5 and 3, not terrible) and were booing Turgeon. At least, that’s how he interpreted the boos.
This is reminiscent of my own time at Maryland, when I covered the basketball team for the school paper, The Diamondback. One night, the home fans booed a skinny, seven-foot Terp center named Rick Wise, who was having a hard time of it against a shorter, but bulkier, opponent.
In the locker room after the game, Wise was practically in tears. Coach H.A. “Bud” Millikan, whose team lost badly that night, approached Wise to console him.
“Son,” Millikan said, “those fans weren’t booing you. They were booing me.”
“Coach,” Wise replied, “I think there was enough booing out there for both of us.”
Same thing as now. Except the money’s so much bigger now. It’s bigger for coaches like Turgeon, and it’s bigger for universities. Coaches make such big bucks because the big-time sports — basketball and football — bring in so much money, particularly if they’re successful programs.
Under Turgeon, Maryland’s had a decent program, but decent isn’t good enough. Everybody wants a second coming of Gary Williams, who won a national championship, or at least a repeat of Lefty Driesell, who came close.
Those two coaches turned lackluster Maryland basketball into a national powerhouse over several decades — and not to be minimized brought in a lot of money to the school.
Turgeon reportedly felt all that booing was inhibiting his ability to coach, and to recruit. He’s probably right about that, which is why administrators were happy to accommodate his exit.
But who does this to a college team so early in a season? Does someone imagine the coaching, and the recruiting, get any easier with this kind of sudden move? Does someone imagine this is a healthy moment for those kids recruited and nurtured by Turgeon?
And what kind of person — a coach, or anybody else — finds booing so disturbing that he walks away from $17 million?
Answer: someone who knows his record is good enough — not great, but not bad — that he’ll find a coaching job somewhere else pretty quickly. Because in today’s climate, there are plenty of other schools with $17 million to throw around, such is the money for winners in big-time college sports.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” was reissued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
As millions mourn the passing of Stephen Colbert from the airwaves, Michael Olesker looks back on the "institution" of late-night TV.
As he gets ready to leave for California, Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg looks back on his time in Baltimore and his 10 years writing for Jmore.
Michael Olesker pays tribute to WJZ’s retiring Marty Bass, a longtime fixture on local TV screens.