With all the negative news that has been reported on here in the past couple of months, I thought it would be nice to bring some good news. I find this article extremely interesting. The University of Maryland Athletic Department currently ranks #3 nationally in the USA Today Director's Cup standings. In case you don't know what the Directors Cup is, this is a ranking system that incorporates both men's and women's sports. So it simply is a measure of how successful an athletic department is overall.

Maryland ranks third only behind #1 Stanford and #2 UNC. There are five total ACC schools ranked in the top 10 nationally. With UNC at #2, MD at #3, FSU #4, Duke #6 and BC #9. Now these rankings are based on results in the fall season, so there still is the winter and spring seasons left until the final standings are announced. I would have to imagine with the Women's Bball and Men's Wrestling both top 15 programs our winter season will be successful and I don't think there is any need to highlight how stout both the men's and women's lax teams are, so spring should be a solid season as well. I say Maryland will end up being a top 10 if not a top 5 program.

I think the reason this article is extremely interesting is the well publicized state of financial crisis for the Maryland Athletic Dept. With being such a successful athletic department overall its hard to imagine why we are not profitable. My main conclusion lies in a couple of areas, the first and most obvious is the inability to maintain a successful football program. Football is the biggest revenue generating sport in college and with having such a roller coaster team for the past 10 years its hard to consistently bring in money. MD is not an SEC school and does not have the prestige of several top programs, so winning is even more crucial. I also think bad coaching contracts is a huge fault of the department as well as not utilizing the facilities to max(music concerts at Comcast).

Anyway, before I get lost in my own disgust for our athletic departments current situation, let's give the fall sports programs a round of applause for their success on the field. Hopefully this transistions into the athletic program offices.