Where I Come From: Becoming a Maryland Fan

Watching Juan and the boys cut down the nets was one of the greatest moments of my life. I’ve been hoooked hard since listenning to King, Williams, Graham, and Manning on the radio as a young boy. Even as an adult meeting manning after a game was quite the thrill!

Go Terps

My late mother was a South Carolina grad. When South Carolina played @ MD my mom watched the game I watched. SC was part of the ACC then. It was the famous slow down game. It something like 4-3 at halftime. MD won 31-30. I was hooked since ’71.

But I’ve been a fan longer than most who did. My Mom grew up in tiny house on Lackawanna St in CP and she went to MD and passed the torch to me at a very young age, even though I grew uo in Pennsylvania. I remember growing up with the Walt Williams era in Bball and suffering through yearly drubbings from PSU on the gridiron.

started watching the tom nugent show on sundays and watched the highlights from the day before. that got me reading about the team in the newspaper and then listening on the radio. very few games were on tv at the time. heck very few tv stations and everything was in beautiful black and white. but names like shiner, walter rock, tom brown, gary collins, darryl hil, jerry fishman, bernardo “the human scoreboard” bramson became part of my life. same with jerry greenspan, joe harrington, gary williams, pete johnson, billy jones, mickey wiles. plus 4 yrs at maryland watching elmore, mcmillen, o’brien, h. white, bodell, will hetzel, darrell brown. or randy white, bob avellini, louis carter, ben kinard. i’ve seen the worst teams md could produce and some of the greatest. win or lose. it’s terps all the way. m a r y l a n d wili win!

….In MD. I was born in baltimore and grew up in adelphi, md. Attended UMBC then transferred / graduated from UMDCP in 2005. Men’s basketball won its national championship my first semester on campus while I was working at none other than RJ Bentley’s. My mother is also an alum we had season tickets as long as i can remember until my move to Hawaii two years later. Turtle blood through and through, fear the honu!

with an older brother who split his 4 years between Virginia Tech and UMD… I grew up rooting for terps but got into Virginia Tech’s Architecture program. I had all but decided to go and changed my mind last minute because of (*warning cliche coming) a girl I was dating at the time. We lasted through first semester freshmen year…. best “mistake I ever made”. I got to see Juan go to both final fours and cut the nets down along with the rebirth of UMD football. Best fours years of my life and I am an even bigger fan today.

For you fellow Terp fans, some NBA Summer League games are televised on the NBA channel and all of the games are available on-line for $15 at www.nba.com. The first scheduled game for Washington (6:30PM vs GSW) and Memphis (10:30PM v Atl) is on Monday, July 12. I think the Wash game will be televised because of Wall but I am not sure about Memphis. If anyone knows, please pass it along. Thanks.

but grew up in Balt Co and have been a fan for 30 years. Started with my brother teaching me about the games with a Lite Brite…keeping track of points, fouls, time outs, etc. Having my heart broken in the ACC finals of 1980 and 1981 are the most vivid early memories along with attending Albert King and Buck Williams last home game against Wake Forest. When Bias died I watched more from a distance for a few years but when I went to the Georgetown game at the Capital Center, Joe Smith and Duane Simpkins turned me into a fanatic again…and I still am today. Just ask my wife.

He went to a high school in my conference (MIAA anyone?) and his story was so heartwarming that it was impossible not root for that team and live in Maryland. When Dixon, Baxter, Wilcox, Blake, Nicholas, Holden, Randle, etc came together to make that amazing team for two years in 01 and 02, I don’t think there was any turning back. I know I’m not the only one here.

Juan Dixon is a true hero at Maryland, perhaps its most iconic player, although Bias should have been. More than Dixon, perhaps, Gary Williams is a fiery coach who really cares about his alma mater and his community, something that is so frequently underrated about him. He could have left any time — you don’t think someone like UNC or UCLA wouldn’t have made him an offer? — but he never will. Neither will we, no matter what we put out on the floor.

It’s also worth nothing that Maryland has a pretty stellar reputation as a football program, at least in the NFL. We produce a ton of NFL players for a not-that-successful team year after year. Let alone our amazing track record in soccer and lacrosse (men’s and women’s), both huge sports in the area.

I went to UMD for undergrad (‘07) and I’m going back in the fall for grad school (class of 2012). My experiences on campus—not just sports—were life changing and made me hugely proud of being part of the Maryland community. My sister went to Maryland, and I even convinced my cousin (who was born and bred in Louisiana—LSU country) to move across the country and attend Maryland instead of LSU.

I dare anyone to go sit in the student section of Comcast during a big ACC game and not get goosebumps.

I lived with my grandparents one block over the DC line in Hillside MD. it was a rough, poor neighborhood. In the mid to late 60s the law in MD was that the university had to take any State High School graduate with a C average. It was my only shot at college. While the University was obliged to take you, they didn’t have to keep you. So the freshman class was 15,000 in September, and 5,000 in January! But I made the cut, got a part time job with the Post Office that paid my tuition and I graduated in 1970. A large part of my loyalty to the University (and the people of MD) is simple gratitude for the shot at a decent life.

I saw the Terps when they were bad, and I saw them when hope arrived in the persona of the old Left Hander. I saw the SC slow down game, and it was the most intense, exciting game I can remember. In my senior year we beat a good Duke team 52 – 50, and a happy crowd left Cole Field House for the snowy parking lot.

Then I moved away, and it was hard to track the Terps. Lost by 1 point to Wooden’s UCLA. Blown out by Ernie DiGregorio’s Providence Friars. Len Bias tragedy.

In 1999 satellite TV brings the Terps into my living room. This Gary Williams seems to be OK, I love Lonnie Baxter , but this Juan Dixon takes too many bad shots. Shows what I know! Haven’t missed a game since, and now this old Terp makes the trip back to College Park once or twice a year to cheer them on in person.

My dad, a Md dental grad, took me to the UCLA vs MD football game in the mid 50’s. UCLA was nationally ranked. Md won. Huge crowd. Went to a game every year thereafter. Remember going to a Band Day game where they had many high school bands on the field, Was at the Air Force game when Darryl Hill scored the game winning touchdown.

Was accepted to Penn State, Bucknell, and Maryland. It was a no brainer. I fell in love with the Maryland campus. Md President Elkins deemphasized athletics for academics in the 60’s but as a student i went to every football and basketball and cheered, Win or lose.

Was a freshman when Gary Williams was a senior on the basketball team. Lot of empty seats in Cole that year. Watched a lot of Big 5 games on Phila, TV that seemed exciting at the time. Gathered a bunch of guys from the dorm and started our own cheering section together because they did have a bunch of boring cheers. So we started clapping and said “Let’s Go”.

Then Lefty came hauled in a few good recruits and the rest is his history. The Cole crowds grew. I wish Gary Williams the best. Ralph Friedgen was also a senior when I was a freshman. Wishing him a successful season also. I bleed Red. Go TERPS!

My parents were both from the area and met while a part of the Mighty Sound of Maryland marching band. And my grandmother works in the School of Music. Rooting for the Terps has been part of my entire life.

Plus, I grew up in Bowie, MD and went to Eleanor Roosevelt (’02). My high school years were definitely high points in Maryland sports (at least for football and basketball) and I loved every minute of it.

I ended up attending school at Winthrop University in South Carolina. Other than being proud to be from Maryland (most students were in-state), my loyalty to the Terps was strengthened by the fact that you either root for the Tigers or the Gamecocks (or neither in my case). I thoroughly enjoyed blasting the Victory Song every time we scored on Clemson each fall, and still mix it up with my friends that are Clemson fans when we play them.

Never forget your roots!