Williams had told reporters Monday: "It wasn't my fault that they're not here. That was somebody else's call."
But Worthington telephoned The Baltimore Sun today and said: "I want to clarify the facts and the timing and the decision process of these situations. It was my recommendation that we not sign a release for Gus. I didn't want to release him. It was the head coach's decision. No one else released Gus."...
"He was going to leave. Me signing the release had nothing to do with it," Williams said after Maryland's 76-67 loss to Boston College. "He had made up his mind. Why not sign a release and let the kid go where he wants? Why am I bad for signing a release?"
Williams also said: "Kathy Worthington doesn't speak for me. She has never won a national championship, she has never done anything. She's an associate AD. This is just giving you guys stuff to make me look bad."...
"Gary made the final decision to withdraw an offer of aid to Tyree and personally called the Office of Student Affairs to inform them he was no longer recruiting Tyree Evans because Tyree had not disclosed all of the criminal issues he'd had in his past," she said. "Gary became upset that Tyree hadn't disclosed everything."
...
Williams said: "What had been in the paper for two straight weeks was you shouldn't make that kid come into that situation here. He would have had to go through so much just being a student on campus after everything that was said in the papers."I've run a clean program for 20 years. Check my record."
I have no idea what Gary's trying to do here, but he's not helping anything. It's clear he's pissed off and trying to get the media and the fans off his back, even though he doesn't particularly deserve to. But there's got to be a better way to do it than attacking the athletic department on charges with enough fudge in them to elicit a strong response.
Likewise, did the athletic department really need to come out and publicly respond to him? They can't go into his office and have a chat about this? It certainly seems strange that they'd skip that step. The only reason I can think is that, in a previous time where something similar happened (and it has), they've tried that, and it didn't work.
Both parties are at fault. Gary needs to step and and take responsibility for the first time since the NC. It can't always be someone else's fault. The AD needs to realize that it's not helping the program by doing this. Just say "That's an internal matter that we can't discuss" and move on.
All this is doing is making the University look much less attractive to potential coaching candidates. It's true, Maryland has all the tools, but they'd not only have to completely rebuild the program, but also deal with a demanding, nonsupportive AD.
I'm not sure how long this can go on. It's not going to help the program in any way. Maybe this makes him more willing to accept a buyout at the end of the year?