In response to Jeremy Cohen’s guest column, “Get Gary Gone” (Jan. 29): First off, in order to have any credibility whatsoever, he should get his basic facts straight. The players on our team are not low-caliber recruits. Greivis Vasquez, Eric Hayes, Cliff Tucker and Braxton Dupree were all four-star recruits, according to Rivals.com or Scout.com. We did not have the most highly touted recruiting class last year, but we still got guard Sean Mosley, a consensus top-75 player. And although Gary Williams may have let numerous top players leave for other schools, he has been able to land the last two Baltimore Players of the Year.

I, for one, am glad to have a coach who does not hire unqualified personal trainers in order to land top recruits. It may have been partially Williams’ fault that Gus Gilchrist left, but it was for good cause. Would you rather be in a situation like we were during the late 1980s?

As far as Williams’ coaching ability goes, he still knows what he is doing. He won a national championship with a team whose star player was redshirted his freshman year, so to say he cannot coach is absolutely ludicrous. He has not done a bad job this year with a team whose best big man is a 6-foot-7 small forward. At this time last year, Williams figured he would be going into the season with Gilchrist, as well as a five-star recruit named Terrence Jennings. Next year, help is on the way as our recent signee, power forward Jordan Williams, scored 50 points in his game on Jan. 27.

I don’t think anyone can say that Williams’ recent dispute with the Athletics Department was not embarrassing. But can you blame Williams for getting defensive when everyone is attacking him? It was Kathy Worthington who was out of line, as she went out of her way to publicly attack Williams.

Lastly, if Williams has lost the desire to coach and does not want to put in the effort, I am all for him stepping down. However, he should step down when he wants. He came to this university after Len Bias’ death, when our program was on probation and in shambles. In 20 years, he took us to 12 NCAA tournaments and did something even former coach Lefty Driesell could not do: win a national championship. He is seventh among active coaches in wins. I know everyone wants the Terps to compete for the national championship, but recently several powerhouses have failed to make the tournament, including Florida, Indiana, Syracuse, Illinois and Connecticut. It is not as if the Terps are alone, as not every school can sit back like Duke and North Carolina and wait for blue-chip recruits to come to their school.

Oh, and as for the belief that Williams Is not respected by players, why not listen to arguably the best player in Terrapin history?

“It’s a program that wasn’t doing as well, [and in] 2002 he won a national title,” Juan Dixon said. “Coach Williams has been getting a lot of heat lately … People need to get off his back because he’s done a lot for that program.”

Jonathan Glick is a junior government and politics major. He can be reached at jglick@umd.edu.

POLICY: The signed letters, columns and cartoon represent only the opinions of the authors.