On Tuesday night, the Terrapin women’s basketball team made history by winning its first-ever national championship, bringing the university into the rarefied air of schools that have won national championships in both men’s and women’s basketball.
Coach Brenda Frese’s charges were the first Maryland team to win a final four game, the only women’s basketball team to beat North Carolina all year and owners of the second greatest comeback in women’s championship game history. Moreover, the team emphatically slammed the door on Duke’s 14-game winning streak over their team. Some media outlets (perhaps fueled by the postgame exaltations of Marissa Coleman herself) even began talking about a possible dynasty with the team’s youth fresh on the minds of many.
However, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The perception that women’s sports somehow don’t count as much as men’s sports in the minds of some fans (all men, I might add) took a hit when fans set bonfires and began rioting in spite of the university’s drafting of new riot policies. When I was still a student at the university, the riots that now seem to be as much a Maryland tradition as rubbing Testudo’s nose or taking graduation photos at the M were unprecedented.
When the Terrapin men’s basketball team overcame a dismal performance that resulted in a loss at the end of a home game against Duke to beat the Blue Devils back in 2000, I fully expected to see the front page splashed with a lead story about the game and perhaps a sidelines column or an analysis piece about the game on a day when the rest of the news desk’s collection of stories was less than impressive. The enormous headline, photos and stories about riots surprised me and led to stories from my colleagues at The Diamondback about where they were or what they were doing for this unprecedented calamity.
More recently, a Diamondback layout editor told me he had templates for the front page that could be used for a Terrapin win over Duke with or without a riot, or a loss with or without a riot. Just as disturbing for an alumnus at a university that has been striving to count itself among the elite public research institutions in the country, I greeted the seconds after Maryland’s 78-75 overtime win over Duke by immediately wondering if Terp fans rioted.
Somehow, you’d think campaigns such as “Act Like You Know” some years back and the crackdown against rioting would get through and people would begin to show a little more class. It’s a disappointment to see we haven’t learned to celebrate without being destructive.
During the days of “Act Like You Know,” I often thought the university’s efforts to seemingly wash over the campus and the surrounding community like a tidal wave of respect and decency was both overblown and forced. So, too, was getting rid of “Rock and Roll Part II” and the “you suck” chants the fans threw in. Then I’d think about situations such as the mother of then-Duke forward Carlos Boozer suing the university because students threw bottles and one hit her. More recently, the “F— you J.J.” chants directed at Duke shooting guard J.J. Redick (not to mention the hideous “Brokeback Redick” chants he’s heard in various places) suggest there’s definitely a problem. But clever ad campaigns certainly aren’t going to solve it and stringent penalties against rioting only cure the symptoms of a disease allowed to run rampant for years.
I can’t begin to recount how many times in the immediate glow of winning a first championship a team has talked about either repeating the following season or beginning a dynasty, only to fall short of its goal the following year. I can even point to times when a team won a single championship and proclaimed itself a potential dynasty, then you never heard from that team again. Let’s wait the next few years to determine whether this Terps team is only a one-hit wonder or the beginning of something big.
Mike Sarzo is an alumnus from the Class of 2000 and is a former Diamondback staff writer and Eclipse managing editor. He can be reached at msarzo@carrollpub.com.
