On SportsCenter Thursday, former Maryland student and noted Terps fan Scott Van Pelt spoke about Maryland and the Board of Regents’ handling of the death of Jordan McNair and the ensuing investigation into the football team’s culture and he didn’t hold anything back.
“Maryland has demonstrated the remarkably consistent ability to do the wrong thing at each step. The most tone-death crisis management imaginable,” he said in a three-minute criticism of how the school has responded to the death of McNair.
The most notable part of the video is when Van Pelt questions why university president Wallace Loh and athletic director Damon Evans still have a job if Board of Regents chair James Brady and football head coach DJ Durkin have both lost their current positions as a result of the scandal.
“It feels as if there has to be a complete cultural reset,” said Van Pelt.
Additionally, Van Pelt advocates for leadership that doesn’t participate in “crab in a bucket” behavior, saying that everyone went into “cover your own ass mode” trying to protect themselves from the aftermath of the scandal.
As for how the university can improve from this incident, Van Pelt highlighted that Gary Williams could be a helpful figure. As Van Pelt notes, Williams was an alum of the university who played for the basketball team and a Hall of Fame basketball coach.
He went on to bemoan the fact that it appears no one has reached out to Williams for guidance in this situation, blaming it on a “leadership void” for the university.
Van Pelt wants all of the university leadership to be people like Williams who have passion for the university who want to highlight what’s great about the university and the state, rather than people who are focused on protecting the power they already have.
During the brief time when Durkin was reinstated as head coach, Van Pelt was also critical of the decision in another clip from SportsCenter.
Van Pelt has never made his strong allegiance to Maryland a secret and used the massive platform that comes with being the host of SportsCenter to make his stance on the matter abundantly clear.
